?73»7L63  Bowers,    John  Hugh© 

:UB67a  Little   Blue  Sooko      No,  3Ul 

Lincoln-Douglas   Debate 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


LITTLE  BLUE  BOOK  NO. 
Edited    by    E.    Haldeman-Julius 


341 


Lincoln-Douglas 
Debate 

Edited  by 

John  Hugh  Bowers 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES  NO.  341 

Edited  by  E.  Haldenian- Julius 

Lincoln-Douglas 
Debate 

John  Hugh  Bowers,  Ph.D.,  LL.B. 

Dept.  History  and  Social  Sciences,  State  Teachers 
College,    Pittsburg-,    Kans. 


HALDEM AN- JULIUS  COMPANV 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


Copyright,  1923, 
Haldeman-Julius  Company. 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE. 

The  Lincoln-Douglas  debate,  in  the  senatorial 
campaign,  in  Illinois,  in  1858,  made  Lincoln 
President  in  1860.  Students  of  history  have 
declared  that  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
as  President  of  the  United  States,  in  1860,  was 
the  most  fortunate  event  in  the  country's  his- 
tory. This  statement  is  based  upon  the  infer- 
ence that  Lincoln's  policies  were  essential  fac- 
tors in  saving  the  Union,  while  the  known  pol- 
icies of  the  other  candidates  for  that  office 
would  have  lost  the  Union. 

The  Lincoln-Douglas  debate,  though  it  re- 
sulted in  the  re-election  of  Douglas  as  Senator 
from  Illinois,  gave  to  Lincoln  that  increased, 
prestige  without  which  he  could  never  have 
been  nominated  or  elected  President  in  186(7. 
The  debate  itself, — A  titanic  oratorical  contest, 
— commands  profound  interest,  because  of  the 
outstanding  character  of  the  contestants,  the 
destiny  of  the  institutions  involved,  and  the 
immense  concern  of  the  whole  American  people 
in  both  immediate  and  remote  results.  The  ia- 
tense  interest  in  this  great  debate  will  forever 
be  part  of  the  fundamental  interest  in  American 
progress  and  the  longer  story  of  human  wel- 
fare. 

A  careful  study  of  this  debate  is  profitable, 
because  it  sheds  light  on  the  critical  period  in 


4  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

American  history,  reveals  human  nature  deal= 
ing  with  momentous  problems,  and  illuminates 
the  methods  by  which  the  great  art  of  public 
speech  is  used  to  influence  public  conduct  in 
a  great  epoch. 

Because  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  in  the  course 
of  the  debate,  each  made  references  to  their 
past  records,  it  is  necessary  to  have  in  mind 
the  brief  sketch,  here  given,  of  the  life  history 
of  each.  And  because  the  debate  was  on  the 
question  of  slavery,  and  referred  so  frequently 
to  the  history  of  that  question,  it  is  necessary 
to  here  give  first  a  very  brief  review  of  at  least 
those  facts,  in  the  history  of  slavery,  to  which 
the  speakers  refer.  The  speakers  inferred  that 
their  hearers  had  fresh  in  memory  the  recent 
history  of  slavery  agitation  and  legislation,  and, 
accordingly,  we  here  offer  a  narration  of  such 
facts  as  are  necessary  to  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  the  debate,  before  giving  the  debate  it- 
self. 

Therefore,  this  volume  presents,  first,  a  brief 
sketch  of  each  debater,  just  sufficient  to  under- 
stand the  references  in  the  debate;  second,  just 
enough  of  the  history  of  the  slavery  question 
to  comprehend  the  allusions  of  the  speakers; 
third,  the  circumstances  attending  the  debate 
along  with  the  chief  arguments  and  replies  of 
each  speaker;  fourth,  the  major  and  important 
portions  of  the  speeches  of  Lincoln  and  of  Doug- 
las are  given  in  the  exact  words  of  the  speaker. 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE  5 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  a  log  cabin  in 
Kentucky,  February  12,  1809.  His  childhood, 
like  that  of  Douglas,  was  spent  in  poverty.  He 
attended  pioneer  schools,  in  all,  only  a  few 
months,  but  his  devoted  mother  helped  him  to 
learn  to  read  and  write,  and  encouraged  him  to 
study  such  books  as  he  could  borrow  in  a  pio- 
neer community.  His  father  moved  to  Indiana, 
where  his  gentle  and  delicate  mother  died  when 
he  was  nine  years  old.  One  year  later  his 
father  married  again.  His  stepmother  was  very 
kind  to  him  and  also  encouraged  him  in  spend- 
ing his  few  spare  moments  in  profitable  read- 
ing. 

His  biographers  regard  his  mother  as  so  gen- 
tle and  refined,  and  his  stepmother  as  so  wise 
and  worthy  that  they  do  not  know  which  he 
meant  when  in  later  life  he  expressed  his  ap- 
preciation for  his  mother.  During  the  time  he 
was  President  he  said:  "All  that  I  am  and 
all  that  I  hope  to  be  I  owe  to  my  sainted  moth- 
er." 

His  father  moved  to  Illinois  in  1830.    There 


6  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

Lincoln  split  rails,  did  general  farm  work,  took 
a  flat  boat  to  New  Orleans,  where  the  sight  of 
the  slave  market  stirred  his  feelings.  He 
clerked  in  a  store,  was  Deputy  County  Surveyor, 
volunteered  in  the  Blackhawk  War,  was  elected 
to  the  Legislature,  studied  law  and  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar.  In  1837  he  moved  to  Spring- 
field, the  capital,  where  he  practiced  law  dur- 
ing the  remaining  years  of  his  life,  except 
during  the  two  years  (1846  to  1848)  when  he 
served  in  Congress,  and  during  the  four  years 
and  forty  days  that  he  was  President. 

In  1836,  he  and  Douglas  were  both  in  the 
Legislature;  Lincoln  as  a  Whig  leader,  and 
Douglas  as  a  leader  of  the  Democrats.  Later 
they  were  rivals  for  the  hand  of  Miss  Mary 
Todd,  who  became  the  wife  of  Lincoln.  They 
met  again  when  Lincoln  went  to  Congress  in 
1847,  where  Douglas  was  in  the  Senate. 

While  in  the  Legislature  Lincoln  expressed 
himself  as  opposed  to  slavery  at  a  time  when 
opposition  to  slavery  was  as  yet  quite  unpopu- 
lar, thus  showing  that  with  him  conscience  was 
stronger  than  expediency.  While  in  Congress 
he  was  in  harmony  with  the  Whig  policy  of 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  7 

criticising  the  administration  program  for  ex- 
panding slave  territory,  in  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  and  the  war  with  Mexico.  His  criticism 
of  the  administration  probably  prevented  him 
from  being  renominated.  He  returned  to  the 
practice  of  law  in  Springfield  and  was  thus 
engaged  when  the  Dred  Scott  decision  and  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  both  favoring  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery  stirred  him  to  re-enter  the  po- 
litical arena,  campaigning  for  the  Republican 
nominee  for  President  in  1856,  and  as  the  Re- 
publican nominee  for  the  Senate  in  1858, 
against  Douglas. 

At  that  time  Douglas  was  the  most  promi- 
nent Democrat  in  the  United  States,  and  Lin- 
coln challenged  him  for  a  joint  debate. 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 


STEPHEN  ARNOLD  DOUGLAS. 

Stephen  Arnold  Douglas  was  born  at  Bran- 
don, Vermont,  April  23,  1813,  and  died  at  Chi- 
cago, June  3,  1861.  He  was  the  son  of  a  phy- 
sician who  died  when  Stephen  was  an  infant, 
leaving  him  to  struggle  with  poverty.  He  was 
apprenticed  to  a  cabinet-maker,  but  his  health 
failed  and  he  quit  after  a  year  and  a  half.  He 
then  studied  for  three  years  at  the  academy 
of  Canandaigua,  where  he  gave  some  time  to 
the  study  of  law.  In  1833  he  went  to  Jackson- 
ville, Illinois,  where  he  supported  himself  by 
teaching  school  and  clerking  for  an  auctioneer. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1834  and  rapidly 
built  up  a  good  practice.  In  1835  he  was  elected 
Attorney  General  of  the  State.  In  December, 
1835,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. In  1837  he  was  appointed  Registrar  of 
the  land  office  at  Springfield.  In  December, 
1840,  he  became  Secretary  of  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois. In  1841  he  became  a  judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Illinois,  which  position  he  re- 
signed to  run  for  Congress  on  the  Democratic 


IJNCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  9 

ticket  in  1843,  and  was  elected.  He  was  elected 
to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1847  and  again 
in  1853,  and  in  1858. 

While  in  Congress  he  took  an  active  part  in 
the  Oregon  controversy  in  which  he  was  posi- 
tively opposed  to  yielding  up  one  inch  of  ter- 
ritory. He  was  also  a  leading  promoter  of  the 
measures  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  the 
war  with  Mexico.  He  was  chairman  of  the 
Territorial  Committee,  which  early  brought  him 
into  prominence  in  discussing  the  question  of 
slavery  in  the  territories.  He  advocated  the 
doctrine  of  "popular  sovereignty,"  that  is,  that 
each  territory  should  decide  for  itself  whether 
it  should  have  slavery  or  not.  The  bill  for  or- 
ganizing the  territories  of  Kansas  and  Ne- 
braska, which  Douglas  reported  out  of  Com- 
mittee in  January,  1854,  caused  great  popular 
excitement,  because  it  repealed  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  and  declared  the  people  of  any 
state  or  territory  free  to  form  and  regulate 
their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way, 
subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

There  was  great  indignation  throughout  the 
free  states  of  the  North,  and  Douglas,  as  the 


10  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

chief  promoter  of  the  measure,  was  hanged  or 
burned  in  effigy  in  many  places.  He  said  that 
he  could  travel  from  Washington  to  Chicago  by 
the  light  of  his  burning  effigies 

The  South  was  pleased  with  the  measure;  and 
consequently  the  North  accused  Douglas  of  hav- 
ing forsaken  the  cause  of  freedom  to  seek  the 
support  of  Southern  Democrats  for  the  nom- 
ination for  the  Presidency.  Both  in  1852  and 
again  in  1856  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  nom- 
ination on  the  Democratic  ticket  for  the  Presi- 
dency, but  was  not  nominated. 

Douglas  pleased  the  Southern  Democrats  and 
displeased  the  North  by  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill  of  1854;  he  certainly  pleased  the  North, 
and  displeased  the  Southern  Democrats,  in 
1857,  by  opposing  the  admission  of  Kansas  as 
a  slave  state  under  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
which  he  maintained  was  fraudulently  organ- 
ized. This  Lecompton  constitution  for  Kan- 
sas was  supported  by  the  Democratic  adminis- 
tration; therefore  the  people  of  the  North  re- 
garded it  as  very  courageous  and  conscientious 
in  Douglas  to  oppose  it.  On  this  account  some 
of  the  Northern  people, — some  of  the  old  Whigs 


'  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  11 

and  some  of  the  Republicans, — thought  that  the 
Republicans  of  Illinois  ought  not  to  offer  a 
candidate  against  him;  but  the  Republican  con- 
vention at  Springfield,  June  16,  1858,  nominated 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


12  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

THE  DEBATE'S  BACKGROUND. 

Slavery  was  introduced  very  early,  both  in 
Northern  and  Southern  colonies,  but  it  proved 
unprofitable  in  the  Northern  colonies  and  very 
profitable  in  the  Southern  colonies;  conse- 
quently, few  slaves  were  kept  in  the  North 
while  large  numbers  were  imported  into  the 
South.  In  the  early  days  the  sentiment  in  the 
two  sections  was  not  very  different;  there  be- 
ing many  prominent  men  in  the  South  who 
were  opposed  to  the  institution,  while  North- 
ern navigators  were  busy  shipping  slaves  from 
Africa  to  Southern  ports. 

Gradually  the  Northern  people  got  rid  of 
their  few  slaves;  the  sentiment  in  that  section 
became  almost  unanimous  that  slavery  was  not 
desirable,  and  then  most  Northern  States  en- 
acted legislation  forbidding  slavery  within 
their  boundaries.  While  the  number  of  slaves 
increased  rapidly  in  the  South,  a  small  but  in- 
fluential minority  of  the  white  men  owned 
nearly  all  the  slaves.  Among  the  slave  hold- 
ers of  the  South  were  some  who  expressed  re- 
gret  concerning   the    existence   of  the   institu- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  13 

tion;  and  this  was  especially  true  before  the 
agitation  of  the  question  tended  to  coerce  the 
men  of  each  section  to  take  sides  with  their 
neighbors  and  become  unified  against  the  other 
section. 

When  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  concerning  the 
territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River,  provided 
that  slavery  should  never  exist  in  any  part  of 
that  domain,  it  was  agreed  to  without  opposi- 
tion; but  almost  contemporaneously,  in  the  ses- 
sions of  that  convention  which  framed  the  Con- 
stitution, the  division  between  the  opponents 
of  slavery  and  its  defenders  presented  a  grave 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  union.  Compromise 
was  necessary,  if  the  union  was  to  be  estab- 
lished at  all,  and  the  fact  that  provisions,  in 
behalf  of  slavery,  were  made  in  the  Constitu- 
tion at  that  time  shows  that  the  friends  of 
slavery  believed  that  it  needed  protection 
against  the  sentiment  that  was  rising  against 
it. 

This  feeling  between  North  and  South  grew 
slowly  and  found  its  next  positive  expression 
in  the  famous  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820. 
The  Territory  of  Missouri  asked  for  admission 


14  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

as  a  state  with  slaves;  congressmen  from  the 
North,  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  pro- 
tested; the  debate  waxed  hot,  and  the  conten- 
tion seemed  to  threaten  the  existence  of  the 
Union;  when  the  matter  was  compromised,  by 
granting  to  the  South  the  admission  of  Missouri 
as  a  slave  state,  and  placating  the  North,  with 
the  provision  that  no  more  slave  states  should 
be  formed  north  of  the  parallel  of  thirty-six  de- 
grees and  thirty  minutes,- — the  southern  bound- 
ary of  Missouri.  This  compromise,  which 
stood  the  ever  increasing  strain  for  thirty-four 
years,  came  to  be  regarded  by  the  people  as 
something  only  less  sacred  than  the  Constitu- 
tion itself.  Even  Douglas,  who  led  the  forces 
for  its  repeal,  said  that  it  had  an  "origin  akin 
to  the  Constitution  and  was  canonized  in  the 
hearts  of  the  American  people  as  a  sacred 
thing." 

Though  the  great  majority  of  the  northern 
people  were  not  actively  hostile  to  slavery;  and 
though  the  Abolitionists  were  a  small  minority, 
ignored  by  many  and  despised  by  some  of  their 
own  neighbors  for  their  anti-slavery  agitation; 
nevertheless,  the  southern  people  felt  that  their 
institution   of  slavery,   being   in    derogation   of 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  15 

natural  rights,  needed  legal  protection.  The 
population  of  the  North  was  increasing  much 
more  rapidly  than  that  of  the  South,  and  with 
a  people  that  were  naturally  inimical  if  not 
hostile  to  slavery.  Thus  it  became  an  unwrit- 
ten law  that  slave  states  and  free  states  should 
be  kept  equal  in  number  so  that  the  South 
could  not  be  outvoted  in  the  Senate.  But  the 
North  was  filling  up  the  northwestern  region 
with  non  slave-holding  communities,  while  the 
South  had  no  more  western  territory  to  furnish 
additional  slave  states. 

Consequently,  southern  people  pushed  west- 
ward into  Texas — territory  then  belonging  to 
Mexico — secured  the  independence  of  that  ter- 
ritory from  Mexico,  gained  admission  to  the 
Union  as  a  slave  state,  brought  on  the  Mexican 
War  and  through  the  combination  of  conquest 
and  purchase,  secured  all  the  territory  from 
Texas  to  the  Pacific;  thus  providing  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  number  of  additional  slave  states. 
By  making  these  gains  in  possible  slave  ter- 
ritory the  South  aroused  the  dormant  anti-slav- 
ery sentiment  of  the  North.  Therefore,  when 
President  Polk  asked  for  an  appropriation  to 
.purchase    territory    from    Mexico,    the    famous 


16  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

Wilmot  Proviso  was  introduced,  prohibiting 
slavery  in  any  of  the  territory  thus  to  be  ac- 
quired. This  proviso  was  lost  but  it  revealed 
the  strength  of  those  who  were  opposed  to  the 
extension  of  slavery. 

The  southern  hopes  for  expansion  met  early 
disappointment  when  California  asked  to  be 
admitted  as  a  free  state;  and  again  when  New 
Mexico  gave  promise  of  becoming  a  free  state, 
and  was  actually  encouraged  therein  by  Presi- 
dent Taylor,  who  was  himself  a  slave  holder. 
Southern  Senators,  having  no  slave  territory 
from  which  to  make  a  slave  state  to  offset 
California,  opposed  the  admission  of  California 
as  a  free  state  and  fell  back  upon  the  appalling 
threat  of  disunion.  To  prevent  New  Mexico 
from  being  admitted  as  a  free  state,  Texas  laid 
claim  to  nearly  all  that  territory. 

In  debate  against  the  Wilmot  Proviso, 
southern  statesmen  had  said  that  Congress  had 
no  right,  under  the  Constitution,  to  interfere 
with  the  property  rights  of  citizens  in  the  ter- 
ritories, and  that  slaves  were  property.  These 
amazing  declarations  were,  of  course,  con- 
trary to  the  established  ideas  of  the  northern 
people,    and    contrary    to    the    Missouri    Com- 


•LN-DOUGLAS    DEBATE  17 

promise    oj     LS20    and    the    ordinance    of    the 
rth-West  Territory  of  1787. 
Those   who   loved    peace    and   desired   union 

seriously  alarmed.  To  the  great  satis- 
faction of  these  conservative  people,  and  to  the 
equal  disgust  of  the  extremists,  both  North 
and  South,  Henry  Clay  again  appeared  in 
his  great  role  of  compromiser.  With  dramatic 
effect,  he  came  forth  from  the  retirement  in 
which  he  seemed  to  have  sought  a  brief  respite 
before  death  should  claim  him;  aged,  feeble, 
with  an  impressive  air  of  sadness;  obviously 
devoting  the  last  remnants  of  his  failing 
energies  to  the  great  task  of  again  compromis- 
ing threatening  factions,  and  of  saving  the 
Union  he  had  loved  and  served  so  long. 

In  January,  1850,  he  introduced  into  the  Sen- 
ate his  "comprehensive  scheme  of  adjust- 
ment." Not  as  "oil  upon  angry  waters"  was 
it  received.  Every  one  was  offended  by  some 
part  of  it,  and  the  debate  which  followed  was 
one  of  the  most  momentous  in  American 
history. 

For  more  than  six  months  that  titanic  de- 
bate involved  all  the  prominent  men  of  that 
day — Clay,   Webster,   Seward,    Sumner,    Chase, 


M  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

Calhoun  and  Jefferson  Davis  each  gave  to  the 
occasion  his  best;  and  the  people  followed  it 
all  with  intense  interest.  Calhoun  came,  as 
from  the  edge  of  the  grave  into  which  he  sank 
a  few  weeks  later,  and  sat  listening  by,  too 
feeble  to  talk,  while  his  speech  was  read  by 
Mason  of  Virginia.  Clay — on  his  feet  con- 
stantly— his  words  gaining  rather  than  losing 
pov/er  from  his  pathetic  feebleness,  declared 
"I  am  here  expecting  soon  to  be  called  hence, 
and  owing  no  responsibility  but  to  my  own  con- 
science and  to  God."  For  a  long  time  all  his 
heroic  efforts  seemed  to  be  for  naught;  as  his 
bill  was  sneeringly  nicknamed  the  "Omnibus 
Bill,"  harrassed  by  amendments  and  finally  de- 
feated. Then  as  if  Congress  had  changed  its 
mind  in  his  direction,  it  took  up  and  passed 
the  several  features  of  his  measure  one  at  a 
time.  Texas  was  given  ten  million  dollars  for 
her  claim  on  the  territory  of  New  Mexico.  Cali- 
fornia was  admitted  as  a  free  state.  New 
Mexico  was  organized  as  a  territory  with  the 
provision  that  when  she  should  form  a  state 
constitution  the  question  of  slavery  should  be 
determined  by  popular  vote  of  the  people,  and 
that  during  her  territorial  existence  the  ques- 


LINCOI.N-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  19 

lion  of  slavery  should  be  determined  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  (Here 
we  get  the  first  suggestion  of  "Squatter  Sover- 
eignty" and  of  a  "Dred  Scott  Decision.")  A 
more  efficient  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  passed. 
And  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia was  abolished.  No  one  was  pleased  with 
what  was  done,  but  all  felt  that  compromise 
was  necessary  and  that  a  spirit  of  liberal  acqui- 
escence was  more  important  than  any  other 
consideration  at  that  time. 

The  masses  felt  intense  relief  at  seeing  the 
imminent  disaster  of  civil  discord  averted, — or 
at  least  postponed.  The  farsighted  few  knew 
it  was  only  postponed.  The  aggressive  men  on 
either  side  were  not  satisfied.  The  South  saw 
that  no  other  gain  could  offset  the  admission 
of  California  as  a  free  state,  thus  losing  to 
them  the  balance  of  power  in  the  Senate.  The 
anti  slavery  men  in  the  North  were  alarmed 
at  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  and  non- 
intervention by  Congress,  as  expressed  in  the 
measure  organizing  the  Territory  of  New 
Mexico. 

Lincoln  recognized  the  futility  of  this  whole 
arrangement  and  declared  that  the  question  of 


20  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

slavery  could  never  be  successfully  compro- 
mised. Nevertheless  he  accepted  the  situation 
as  the  best  that  could  be  done  at  the  time. 

In  the  North,  the  few  farsighted  and  devoted 
Abolitionists,  knowing  that  the  peace  was  only 
temporary,  continued  their  work  of  teaching 
that  human  slavery  was  wrong;  an<5  were  con- 
sequently persecuted  by  the  thoughtless  majority 
who  were  opposed  to  agitation,  and  who  hoped 
in  vain  to  promote  peace  by  squelching  discus- 
sion. Though  the  masses  were  saying,  "Let  us 
have  peace,"  all  felt  that  the  concord  would  at 
once  change  to  discord  unless  the  nation  should, 
in  1852,  elect  a  proslavery  President.  Conse- 
quently, Franklin  Pierce  was  chosen.  Lincoln 
made  some  speeches  in  the  campaign,  but  un- 
der the  circumstances,  his  biographer  and  law 
partner,  Herndon,  says  that  he  did  not  speak 
with  his  usual  effectiveness,  because  so  many 
Northern  men  felt  the  desire  for  peace  rather 
than  victory. 

In  January,  1854,  Douglas  introduced  into  the 
Senate,  his  famous  "Kansas-Nebraska  Bill"  es- 
tablishing the  two  territories  and  declaring  the 
Missouri  Compromise  "inoperative"  therein;  to 
which  bill  an  amendment  was  added  repealing 


<  '<  >i,n    D(  >UGL  \;:    DEBATE  21 

the  Missouri  Compromise  and  providing  to 
leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form 
and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their 
own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States."  With  this  amendment  the  bill 
finally  passed  after  a  long  fight.  While  Douglas, 
as  the  Democratic  leader  in  the  Senate,  got  the 
credit  for  the  authorship  of  this  doctrine  of 
"popular  sovereignty,',  the  idea  was  not  neces- 
sarily original  with  him,  as  we  find  it  appear- 
ing in  substance  in  the  Compromise  of  1850; 
and  we  also  find  that  Senator  Dixon  of  Ken- 
tucky offered  such  a  measure  in  the  Senate 
seven  days  before  Douglas  introduced  the 
"Kansas-Nebraska  Bill." 

This  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
fired  with  indignation  all  the  antislavery 
forces  of  the  North,  the  mild  conservatives  as 
well  as  the  ardent  radicals.  Lincoln's  innate 
antipathy  for  the  institution  of  slavery  was 
thoroughly  aroused.  He  had  been  practicing 
law  and  had  apparently  lost  some  of  his  early 
enthusiasm  concerning  public  affairs,  but  this 
new  possibility  of  the  extension  of  slave  terri- 
tory stirred  his  sympathetic  soul  with  fierce 
indignation. 


22  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

Douglas  came  home  in  the  autumn  and  was 
given  a  disagreeable  reception  by  an  indignant 
audience  in  Chicago.  He  set  about  to  win  back 
his  Illinois.  He  spoke  to  a  large  audience  at 
the  great  state  fair..  Lincoln  was  called  upon 
to  answer  him,  and  did  so,  effectively.  Lin- 
coln felt  a  wise  instinct  to  follow  Douglas  up 
and  contest  with  him  as  often  as  occasion  per- 
mitted, but  Douglas  finding  him  such  a  trouble- 
some adversary  proposed  a  truce  to  which  Lin- 
coln good-naturedly  assented. 

Lincoln,  contrary  to  his  wisnes,  was  elected 
to  the  Legislature  the  following  winter.  Wish- 
ing to  be  a  candidate  for  the  Senate,  he  re- 
signed, and  a  reaction  in  Sangamon  County  put 
a  Democrat  in  his  place.  In  the  Legislature, 
the  Douglas-Democrats  wished  to  reelect  Gen- 
eral Shields,  the  present  incumbent.  On  the 
first  ballot,  Lincoln  got  a  larger  number  of 
votes  than  any  other  candidate,  ana  nearly  a 
majority.  He  ought  to  have  been  elected,  and 
would  have  been,  but  was  opposed  bitterly,  by 
a  few,  on  account  of  his  antislavery  sentiments. 
When  it  seemed  that  he  could  not  be  chosen 
himself  he   begged  his  staunch   supporters    to 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE  23 

vote  for  Lyman  Trumbull,  who  was  an  anti- 
Douglas  and   anti   slavery  Democrat. 

During  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debate,  Douglas 
charged  that  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  had  made 
a  bargain  that  Lincoln  was  to  take  the  place  of 
Senator  Shields  in  '54  while  Trumbull  was  to 
have  the  place  of  Douglas  in  '58;  and  if  there 
was  ever  any  truth  at  all  in  that  charge,  it  was 
very  magnanimous  on  the  part  of  Lincoln  to 
turn  this  election  to  Trumbull  at  this  time. 

Lincoln  and  Douglas  both  figured  in  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  1856;  Douglas  as  a 
defeated  aspirant  for  the  Democratic  nomina- 
tion; (the  Democrats  preferring  James  Buchan- 
an who  was  understood  to  be  displeased  with 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise)  while 
Lincoln,  not  a  candidate  at  all,  was  given  110 
votes  for  the  nomination  for  second  place  on  the 
Republican  ticket  in  their  national  convention. 
When  Lincoln  heard  this  he  remarked,  "They 
probably  thought  that  they  were  voting  for  the 
great  Lincoln   from  Massachusetts." 

The  immediate  effect  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill  was  to  start  a  contest  between  the  anti- 
slavery  men  of  the  North  and  the  proslavery 
men  of  the  South  to  see  who  could  first  occupy 


24  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

the  new  territory  and  carry  the  election.  The 
North  had  the  advantage  of  a  much  larger 
population,  while  the  South  had  the  advantage 
of  proximity,  it  being  only  necessary  to  move 
across  the  Missouri  border.  Antislavery  mer- 
chants and  professional  men  in  the  North  sub- 
scribed money  to  pay  the  way  of  sturdy  immi- 
grants who  would  move  to  Kansas  and  make 
their  homes  there.  These  free-state  men  were 
legitimate  settlers  and  disposed  to  orderly 
methods,  but  both  willing  and  able  to  fight  if 
necessary.  To  the  few  bonafide  immigrants 
from  the  South  were  added  a  number  of  "border 
ruffians'*  from  Missouri  whose  only  purpose 
was  to  cross  into  Kansas  long  enough  to  take 
part  in  the  contest  and  secure  the  Territory 
for  the  extension  of  slavery,  by  fair  means  or 
foul.  These  latter  contestants  showed  a  pref- 
erence for  the  methods  of  intimidation,  yet  were 
willing  to  use  the  ballot-box  when  they  could 
see  that  it  was  stuffed  with  votes  on  their 
side.  There  followed  border  warfare,  impris- 
onments, rescues,  looting,  burning;  also  the 
forms  of  law,  trials,  legislation  and  court  de- 
cisions;  in  all,  a  strange  phantasmagory  of  in- 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS    l  >EBATE  25 

timidation,  arson,  bloodshed  together  with 
politics,  elections  and  law. 

It  was  clear  that  the  antislavery  men  out- 
numbered the  proslavery  men,  and  that  the 
Northerners  had  come  to  stay.  The  slavery 
party  framed  up  the  Lecomption  Constitution, 
providing  for  slavery,  which  did  not  represent 
the  will  of  the  majority  at  all,  but  transferred 
the  struggle  to  the  floors  of  Congress. 

Though  President  Buchanan  was  supposed  to 
be  in  sympathy  with  the  Northern  Democrats 
who  opposed  "Popular  Sovereignty,"  he  had 
solemnly  promised  that  he  would  be  governed 
by  the  result  of  the  popular  vote  in  the  terri- 
tories concerned.  Now  he  was  confronted  by 
two  popular  votes  from  Kansas;  the  one  show- 
ing clearly  that  the  antislavery  men  were  in 
the  majority  and  opposed  to  the  Lecompton 
Constitution;  while  the  other  vote  had  framed 
up  that  Constitution  in  a  way  that  had  the 
semblance  of  law  and  orderly  methods.  The 
President  chose  to  support  the  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution and  accordingly  advised  Congress  to 
admit  Kansas  as  a  slave  state. 

But  Douglas,  as  the  Democratic  leader  in 
Congress,  took  the  side  against  the  administra- 


2G  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

tion,  declaring  that  the  Leeompton  Constitu- 
tion was  a  fraud,  and  due  to  his  efforts  it  was 
defeated.  For  his  part  in  this  contest,  Doug- 
las took  great  credit  to  himself.  His  friends 
cited  his  actions  in  this  case  as  proof  of  his 
great  political  integrity,  while  his  critics  said 
that  this  action  on  his  part  was  necessary  to 
his  reelection  as  Senator  from  Illinois  in  1858. 
His  situation  was  a  difficult  one  for  a  politi- 
cian. Southern  Illinois  was  somewhat  pro- 
slavery,  while  the  northern  part  of  the  state 
was  antislavery.  Also  he  had  desired  the 
Democratic  nomination  for  President  both  in 
1852  and  in  1856,  and  he  expected  to  be  a  candi- 
date again  in  1860.  He  had  greatly  pleased 
the  Southern  Democrats  by  his  part  in  repeal- 
ing the  Missouri  Compromise  and  opening  up 
the  way  for  slavery  to  expand  into  the  terri- 
tories. But  in  doing  this  he  had  displeased  the 
antislavery  Democrats  of  the  North  and  also 
the  Democrats  of  northern  Illinois.  His  part 
in  preventing  the  fraudulent  admission  of  Kan- 
sas as  a  slave  state  restored  him  in  the-  favor 
of  many  Northern  Democrats  and  won  him  the 
favor  of*  some  who  were  not  Democrats. 
We  see  an  instance  of  the  political  foresight  of 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS    DEBATE  27 

Lincoln  in  the  fact  that,  nearly  two  and  a  half 
years  before  the  affair  of  the  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution, came  up,  he  said, — "If  Kansas  fairly 
votes  herself  a  slave  State,  she  must  be  admit- 
ted or  the  Union  must  be  dissolved.  But  if 
she  votes  herself  a  slave  State  unfairly?  .  .  , 
Must  she  still  be  admitted  or  the  Union  be  dis- 
solved? That  will  be  the  phase  of  the  question 
when  it  first  becomes  a  practical  one."  His 
prophecy  was  fulfilled. 

It  was  certainly  very  fortunate  for  Douglas 
that  his  opposition  to  the  admission  of  Kansas 
as  a  slave  state  came  just  on  the  eve  of  his 
candidacy  for  reelection  to  the  Senate  in  1858. 
It  was  fortunate  for  Lincoln  to  have  the  op- 
portunity to  debate,  at  that  time,  with  the 
acknowledged  leader  of  the  Democrats,  thus 
giving  Lincoln  a  notoriety  that  he  could  have 
secun  <]  in  no  other  way.  It  was  fortunate  for 
the  welfare  of  the  Union  that  the  combination 
of  circumstances  brought  Lincoln  to  the  front 
and  made  possible  his  election  as  President  two 
years  later. 

From    1852    to    1860    Douglas    was   the    most 

worthy  man  in  public  life  in  this  country. 

Webster,    Clay,   John    Quincy   Adams,   and    Cal- 


28  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

lioun  had  passed  away.  Seward,  Sumner  and 
Chase  were  just  beginning  their  brilliant 
careers,  and  were  organizing  the  party  of  the 
future.  During  these  eight  years,  Douglas  was 
more  prominent  than  any  other  man.  The 
reason  for  his  failing  to  secure  the  nomination 
of  the  Democratic  party  for  the  Presidency  in 
1852,  and  again  in  1856,  was  partly  because  he 
was  too  prominent;  the  tendency  being  to 
nominate  a  man  who  would  be  less  significant, 
less  self-confident,  more  submissive  and  manage- 
able. Douglas,  though  a  politician  who  de- 
sired to  be  President,  was  not  the  submissive 
type.  He  was  aggressive,  masterful  and  self- 
reliant,  as  well  as  a  brilliant  campaigner,  an 
orator  and  a  tireless  fighter. 

Douglas  was  a  strong  man  in  debate;  com- 
bining something  of  the  impressiveness  of  Web- 
ster with  the  rough  and  ready  arts  of  the  stump 
speaker.  He  was  also  a  strong  political  ad- 
versary; possessing  the  art  of  popularity,  the 
adroitness  of  the  schemer,  and  the  dignity  of 
a  statesman.  He  had  done  his  best  to  retain 
his  hold  on  both  the  Northern  and  Southern 
wings  of  the  Democratic  party.  He  told  the 
Southerners    that   by   his   fortunate   method    of 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS    DEBATE  29 

popular  sovereignty  he  had  educated  the  public 
mind  and  accomplished  the  repeal  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise.  He  told  the  Northerners  to 
remember  how  peacefully  the  Union  had  en- 
dured under  the  arrangement  made  by  the  Fa- 
thers of  the  Constitution  who  provided  that 
each  state  should  govern  its  own  domestic  af- 
fairs. Douglas  had  the  advantage  in  that  Illi- 
nois had  been  a  Democratic  state.  He  also  had 
the  advantage  in  prestige  over  Lincoln  who  had 
served  only  one  term  in  Congress. 

Meanwhile  other  occurrences  had  stirred  the 
feelings  of  antipathy  between  North  and  South. 
The  enforcement  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  was 
odious  to  many  Northern  people.  Even  men 
who  believed  in  allowing  slavery  to  exist  where 
it  was,  did  not  like  to  see  black  men  dragged 
back  from  freedom  into  captivity.  The  seizure 
of  an  escaped  slave,  Anthony  Burns,  in  Boston, 
in  1854,  caused  a  riot  in  which  a  mob  attacked 
the  Court  House;  one  of  the  mob  was  killed, 
and  the  militia  had  to  be  called  out  to  restore 
order,  costing  the  state  thousands  of  dollars. 
In  1856,  Preston  Brooks,  a  hot  headed  Southern- 
er, strode,  suddenly  upon  Charles  Sumner, 
seated    unarmed    at   his    desk    in     the     Senate 


30  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

chamber,  and  beat  him  savagely  over  the  head 
with  a  cane.  The  South  instead  of  repudiat- 
ing the  act  lauded  Brooks  in  a  way  that  caused 
righteous  resentment  among  Northern  people. 
The  resulting  reaction  in  each  section  showed 
how  wide  the  breach  was  between  them. 

But  the  most  significant  event  coming  be- 
tween the  Compromise  of  1850  and  the  election 
of  1860  was  the  Dred  Scott  Decision,  handed 
down  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  in  1856,  declaring  that  a  slave  is  "prop- 
erty" and  that  Ms  owner  is  entitled  to  be  pro- 
tected in  the  possession  of  such  property  in  the 
territories.  This  doctrine  demolished  the  doc- 
trine of  popular  sovereignty  which  the  Doug- 
las Democrats  had  with  so  much  shrewdness 
established,  because  it  gave  the  people  no 
choice  at  ail  in  the  matter.  This  decision 
ended  the  long  struggle  in  '  Congress  over  the 
question  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  ended 
it  in  the  way  most  favorable  to  the  slave  inter- 
ests. It  rejoiced  the  Southern  slave  holders 
and  thoroughly  aroused  the  indignation  of  all 
antislavery  men  of  whatever  shade  of  belief. 
It  was  at  once  apparent  that  if  the  Court  could 
make  such  a  decision  concerning  the  territories 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  31 

ild  make  a  similar  decision  concerninj 
s  as  soon  as  public  sentiment  should  become 
sufficiently  tolerant.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
Chief  Justice  Roger  Brook  Taney,  who  handed 
down  this  decision,  was  a  Southern  sympa- 
thiser, who  had  been  appointed  .on  the  Court 
by  Andrew  Jackson. 

Such  was  the  advancement  of  the  slavery 
conflict  in  this  country  in  1858,  when  there  oc- 
curred that  great  debate  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas,  resulting  in  the  reelection  of  Douglas 
to  the  Senate,  and  the  election  of  Lincoln  as 
President  in  1860. 

THE  DEBATE. 

In  the  year  1856  Lincoln  seemed  to  be  ab- 
sorbed in  the  practice  oT  law  in  Springfield, 
and  his  interest  in  national  polities  had  ap- 
parently subsided  to  about  the  level  found  in 
the  average  intelligent  public-spirited  citizen, 
when  he  was  aroused  by  the  evidence  that  the 
proslavery  forces  were  making  rapid  strides  in 
the  direction  of  the  extension  of  slave-territory. 
The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  mak- 
ing possible  the  extension  of  slavery;   and  the 


.32  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS    DEBATE 

Dred  Scott  Decision,  reducing  the  slave  to  the 
same  status  as  any  other  property  that  could 
be  carried  into  any  territory,  thoroughly  aroused 
his  indignation. 

Early  in  1858  a  convention  of  all  opposed  to 
slave  extension  was  called  at  Bloomington. 
Lincoln  was  there  and  in  response  to  repeated 
calls  came  forward  and  made  a  speech  of  such 
earnestness  and  power  that  those  who  heard  il 
never  forgot  the  impression  made.  Then  from 
that  enthusiastic  meeting  he  returned  to  the 
chill  atmosphere  of  indifference  in  Springfield 
where  an  attempt  to  call  a  local  convention 
resulted  in  the  attendance  of  three  persons, 
Lincoln,  his  partner  Herndon  and  one  other 
man.  This  was  trying,  but  Lincoln's  wit  and 
good  humor  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  he 
said  that  the  meeting  was  larger  than  he  knew 
it  would  be,  for  he  knew  that  he  and  his  part- 
ner would  attend  and  here  was  another  man 
brave  enough  to  come  out.  Then  he  added, 
"while  all  seems  dead,  the  age  in  which  we 
live  is  not  dead.  It  liveth  as  sure  as  our 
Maker  liveth." 

In  the  presidential  campaign  of  1856  the  Re- 
publicans of  Illinois  put  Lincoln  on  their  elec- 


UNI  ''  >LN    I"  iTJGLAS    DEBATE  33 

toral  ticket  and  he  stumped  the  state,  making 
about  fifty  speeches,  which  attracted  attention, 
made  him  the  recognized  leader  of  his  party  In 
the  state,  and  brought  him  some  recognition 
from  neighboring  states. 

His  reputation  reached  the  East,  where  it 
met  some  lack  of  appreciation,  and  in  certain 
quarters  a  little  hostility,  which  he  felt  to  be 
hurtful  to  his  prospects,  as  well  as  unjust  to  a 
prominent  Republican  of  the  West.  Horace 
Greeley,  a  well  meaning  enthusiast,  but  a  little 
lacking  in  foresight,  the  editor  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  cast  the  powerful  influence  of 
that  paper  against  him.  Greeley  seemed  to 
have  always  been  anti-Lincoln,  and  he  became 
pro-Douglas  after  Douglas  aided  in  the  defeat 
of  the  Lecomption  Constitution.  As  the  Sena- 
torial election  of  1858  was  approaching,  and 
Lincoln  hoped  to  be  a  candidate,  he  regretted 
this  attitude  of  Greeley.  He  said,  "I  am  afraid 
that  Greeley's  attitude  will  hurt  me  with  Se- 
ward, Sumner,  Wilson,  and  other  friends  in  the 
East."  It  is  interesting  to  note  who  he  re- 
garded as  his  friends  in  the  East.  They  were 
the  most  prominent  antislavery  men.  His  faith- 
ful law  partner,  Herndon,  made  a  trip  to  the 


34  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

East,  largely  for  the  purpose  of  communicat- 
ing a  favorable  impression,  concerning  Lincoln, 
to  those  great  men  of  the  East. 

In  the  Spring  of  1358  the  Democratic  con- 
vention in  Illinois  endorsed  the  position  taken 
by  Douglas  iv.  the  controversy  concerning  Kan- 
sas, which  meant  that  they  would  support  him 
for  reelection  to  the  Senate  the  following  win* 
ter,  by  the  State  Legislature,  which  was  to  be 
elected  that  fall.  In  the  very  nature  of  things, 
the  Republican  convention  nominated  Lincoln, 
and  the  people  looked  forward  to  a  battle  royal 
between  the  two  giants  in  debate. 

The  Democrats  had  regularly,  carried  the 
state  of  Illinois  in  the  past,  but  now  all  was 
uncertain,  and  particularly  uncertain  concern- 
ing Douglas,  in  the  campaign  of  1858.  First, 
he  had  pleased  the  Southern  Democrats  and 
displeased  the  Northern  Democrats  by  his  part 
in  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise  and 
opening  the  Territories  to  the  possibility  of  the 
extension  of  slavery.  Now,  more  recently,  he 
had,  in  turn,  greatly  displeased  the  proslaver^ 
Democrats,  and  pleased  the  antislavery  Demo- 
crats by  opposing  the  Lecompton  Constitution 
to  admit  Kansas  as  a  slave  state.    While  South- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS    DEBATE  3.) 

ern  Democrats  were  reading  him  out  of  the 
party,  Northern  Democrats  were  trying  to  per 
suade  Republicans  in  Illinois  that  the  best 
thing  ttiat  they  could  do  for  the  cause  of  free- 
dom was  to  not  nominate  a  candidate  against 
Douglas  at  all  in  Illinois;  and  some  Republicans 
and  some  of  the  old  Whigs  in  the  East  were 
read:-  to  urge  their  friends  in  Illinois  to  sup- 
port Douglas  and  thus  give  him  a  hearty  wel- 
come into  the  antislavery  ranks.  They  were 
dazzled  by  his  accumulation  of  prestige,  popu- 
larity, his  seductive  eloquence,  his  parliament- 
ary skill  and  his  mastery  over  men.  The  old 
lines  of  allegiance  were  broken  and  Democrats 
felt  the  call  to  do  some  new  thinking. 

These  who  were  not  Democrats  were  even 
more  amused.  The  old  Whig  organization 
was  gone.  The  Republican  party  was  new  but 
had  grown  so  rapidly  as  to  occasion  wild  con- 
jecture as  to  what  it  might  do  in  the  way  of 
numerical  strength.  Its  general  principle  of 
opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery  drew  into 
its  fold  most  of  the  old  Whigs  and  some  of  the 
antislavery  Democrats.  The  general  political 
condition  was  so  confused  as  to  call  upon  many 
to  make  now  decisions  as  to  their  affiliations, 


:.3  LINCOL1SL-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

thus    insuring    intense    interest    in     the    forth- 
coming Lincoln-Douglas  contest. 

Lincoln  expected  to  be  nominated,  and  for 
some  time  had  been  preparing  his  speech  of  ac- 
ceptance with  great  care.  Whatever  else  he 
might  be  doing  he  was  also  thinking  about  his 
speech,  writing  down  portions  of  it  on  small 
pieces  of  paper,  rewriting  and  thinking  until 
he  had  it  all  carefully  worded  and  committed. 
Time  proved  that  he  was  justified  in  the  most 
careful  preparation,  for  his  speech  was  watched 
for  with  the  keenest  interest,  and  all  his  words 
subjected  to  the  most  critical  discussion. 

When  his  speech  was  finished,  the  day  before 
he  was  to  deliver  it,  he  called  together  a  group 
of  his  friends  and  admirers  and  read  it  to 
them.  When  he  read  his  introductory  para- 
graph, which  has  since  become  famous  for  the 
words:  "a  house  divided  against  itself  can  not 
stand,"  he  saw  only  consternation  and  positive 
disapproval  in  the  faces  of  all  his  hearers  ex- 
cept that  of  his  partner,  Herndon.  Their  con- 
demnation of  his  exordium,  Lincoln  heard  with 
gravity  rather  than  surprise,  then  explained 
that  what  he  said  was  just  what  he  thought 
ought  to  be  said  and  that  he  would  rather  say 


LINCOLN    l»<  MCI-  IS   i  ►BBATE  37 

that  and  be  defeated  than  to  leave  it  unsaid  and 
be  elected,  and  accordingly  the  jicxl  day  be 
spoke  the  fateful  paragraph  without  changing 
a  word. 

The  dire  prediction  of  his  friends  was  fully 
justified  by  the  immediate  and  temporary  re- 
sults; but  the  foresight  of  Lincoln  was  proved 
in  the  long  run.  To  some  of  his  friends  who 
grumbled  about  his  ''mistake, "  he  replied  that 
the  time  would  come  when  they  would  consider 
it  the  wisest  thing  that  he  had  ever  said. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Seward,  the 
most  widely  known  Republican  of  the  day,  ex- 
pressed the  same  thought  in  one  of  his  speeches 
just  a  few  months  later,  saying:  "It  is  an  irre- 
pressible conflict  between  opposing  and  en- 
during forces,  and  it  means  that  the  United 
States  must  and  will,  sooner  or  later,  become 
entirely  a  slaveholding  nation  or  a  free  labor 
nation."  But  we  need  to  remember  that  Sew- 
ard ranked  among  the  extreme  agitators. 

Men  everywhere  recognized  in  Lincoln's 
speech  a  resounding  shot  opening  a  furious 
forensic  battle.  His  clearcut  speech  challenged 
the  thinking  of  all  parties.  His  declaration 
that   "a    house    divided    against    itself   can    not 


38  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

stand,"  displeased  many  even  in  the  North,  who 
wished  peace  at  any  price,  and  were  constantly 
insisting  that  the  house  could  stand — must 
stand — though  divided.  Many  in  the  North 
hated  fiercely  the  abolitionist  agitators  and 
many  were  inclined  to  class  Lincoln  among 
them.  What  later  proved  to  be  wise  foresight, 
was  then  regarded  as  foolish  agitation,  calcu- 
lated only  to  stir  up  needless  strife.  But  Lin- 
coln's supporters  saw  in  his  standard  the 
crusader's  high  call  to  duty.  There  were  pres- 
ent all  the  elements  of  a  fierce  political  strug- 
gle, with  the  people  thoroughly  aroused, — the 
champions — two  of  the  foremost  men  in  the  na- 
tion, and  evenly  matched;  many  felt  instinct- 
ively that  somehow  the  destiny  of  the  Republic 
hung  in  the  balance.  Douglas, — spoken  of  as 
"The  Little  Giant," — and  easily  regarded  as  the 
strongest  antagonist  in  the  whole  Democratic 
party;  Lincoln,  confidently  regarded  by  his 
friends  as  a  match,  in  debate,  for  any  man 
living;  the  Republicans  said:  "Lincoln  must 
challenge  Douglas  to  a  joint  debate."  He  did. 
Douglas  accepted,  and  named  seven  meetings  so 
arranged  that  he  should  open  and  close  at 
four  and  Lincoln  at  three*  of  the  engagements. 


LTNCOl    ■:    DOUGLAS    DBBA  I  3-9 

To  hear  these  gigantic  encounters  the  peo- 
ple gathered  in  vast  multitudes  numbering 
thousands,  even  ten  and  twenty  thousands; 
coming  in  wagons  and  camping,  parading, 
building  bonfires,  drinking  and  celebrating. 
Lincoln  fully  appreciated  the  burden  and  re- 
sponsibility of  a  contest  so  momentous.  He 
was  thoroughly  prepared,  knew  just  what  he 
wished  to  say  and  said  it  with  well  directed 
clearness,  but  also  v/ith  evident  caution.  From 
the  very  beginning,  he  had  to  meet  a  false  in- 
terpretation of  his  famous  opening  paragraph 
in  his  speech  of  acceptance.  His  words,  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  can  not  stand," 
which  he  meant  for  a  prediction  and  a  clear 
invitation  to  open  minded  thinking,  were  by 
Douglas  distorted  into  a  challenge,  or  an 
avowal  of  purpose  to  wage  war  against  slavery 
until  either  the  institution  of  slavery  should  be 
destroyed  or  the  doctrine  of  abolitionism  should 
be  forever  silenced. 

While  Lincoln's  forecast  that  the  Nation 
would  become  "all  one  or  all  the  other/'  proved, 
a  little  later,  to  be  wise,  at  that  time  it  was 
not  what  most  men  wished  to  hear;  for  they 
wished   peace.     The   Nation   had   endured    half 


40  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

slave  and  half  free,  and  tliey  could  not  see  why 
it  should  not  continue  to  endure  thus  divided. 
Douglas  made  the  most  of  this  opportunity  to 
appeal  to  the  superficial  and  short-sighted 
thinking  of  the  crowd.  He  represented  Lin- 
coln's words  to  be  "revolutionary,"  "inviting  to 
warfare/'  designed  to  bring  on  a  struggle  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South  which  should 
drive  one  or  the  other  to  the  wall  and  make  it 
entirely  submissive  to  the  other,  subject  to  the 
rapacity  and  revenge  of  the  victor. 

This  undeserved  misrepresentation  annoyed 
Lincoln,  but  he  answered  with  painstaking  and 
patient  logic,  explaining  carefully  again  and 
again  just  what  he  did  mean,  and  that  he  did 
not  mean  the  inferences  which  Douglas  was  so 
adroitly  reading  into  his  words.  Lincoln's 
mind  worked  with  cautious  honesty.  He 
thought  out  great  principles  which  he  believed 
to  be  true,  stated  them  clearly,  and  often  re- 
peated them  again  after  the  lapse  of  years.  In 
1855,  he  closed  a  letter  with  the  words:  "Our 
political  problem  now  is:  Can  we,  as  a  nation, 
continue  together  permanently — forever,  half 
slave  and  half  free?  The  problem  is  too  mighty 
for   me.     May   God   ii?   His   mercy  superintend 


I...  i  'OLN-Iv*  >UGL,AS    DlTBATE  41 

the  solution."  Thus  we  see  an  honest  and  mod- 
est conviction  had  been  growing  in  his  mind. 
He  had  not  been  trying  to  phrase  a  statement 
to  catch  the  ear  of  the  crowd  and  make  him- 
self popular;  but  had  been  seeking  the  funda- 
mental truth.  With  art  and  effective  plausa- 
bility,  Douglas  went  on  day  after  day,  reiter- 
ating his  misinterpretations  of  Lincoln's  words. 
Lincoln  was  vexed,  but  with  patience  he  went 
on  explaining  that  he  had  not  expressed  a  doc- 
trine, had  not  meant  to  voice  a  determination, 
nor  any  purpose  or  policy  whatever.  Lincoln 
was  too  courageous  to  leave  his  position  in 
doubt.  He  said,  "If  you  will  carefully  read 
that  passage  over,  you  will  find  that  I  did  not 
say  that  I  was  in  favor  of  anything.  I  only 
said  what  I  expected  would  take  place.  I  did 
not  even  say  that  I  desired  that  slavery  should 
be  put  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  I 
do  say  so  now,  however,  so  there  need  be  no 
doubt  about  that."  Lincoln  added,  "There  is  no 
way  of  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery  agitation 
among  us  but  by  putting  it  back  upon  the  basis 
where  our  fathers  placed  it  .  .  .  Then  the 
public  mind  will  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in 
the  course  of  ultimate  extinction." 


42  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

Lincoln  and  Douglas  each  eloquently  evoked 
the  shades  of  "the  fathers,"  who,  having 
reached  the  eternal  silence,  could  be  claimed 
by  both  sides.  This  contention,  though  some- 
what irrelevant,  was  none  the  less  strenuous; 
for  the  opinions  of  the  fathers  could  not  make 
slavery  either  right  or  wrong.  Douglas  con- 
tinually charged  Lincoln  with  having  said  that 
"the  Union  could  not  endure  as  our  fathers 
made  it,  with  both  slave  and  free  states;"  as 
though  Lincoln  were  guilty  of  a  sort  of  blas- 
phemy against  our  national  demigods. 

Lincoln  very  aptly  retorted  that  our  fathers 
had  not  made  the  nation  half  free  and  half 
slave,  but  had  found  it  so  and  could  do  no 
more  than  put  the  seal  of  their  disapprobation 
upon  slavery,  which  they  did  in  many  instan- 
ces, and  left  it  so  restricted  that  the  popular 
mind  rested  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the 
course  of  extinction.  Then  Lincoln  charged, 
repeatedly,  that  slavery  had  not  been  left  as 
the  fathers  left  it,  but  that  Douglas  and  others 
had  promoted  a  series  of  changes  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  it  universal;  and  through  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill,  and   The   Dred   Scott  Decision, 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  43 

they  had  advanced  slavery  to  where  all  that 
they  now  needed  was  another  Supreme  Court 
decision  making  slavery  lawful  in  all  the 
states  to  accomplish  their  proslavery  purposes; 
and  the  completion  of  that  purpose  might  be 
accomplished  as  soon  as  Douglas  could  per- 
suade the  people  to  accept  his  attitude  of  "do 
not  care  whether  slavery  be  voted  up  or  voted 
down." 

At  that  point  in  the  discussion,  Lincoln  re- 
peatedly put  the  following  question,  which  the 
adept  Douglas  would  never  answer  directly: 
"Since  another  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
is  all  that  is  now  lacking  to  make  slavery  alike 
lawful  in  all  the  states;  if  such  a  decision  is 
made,  holding  that  the  people  of  the  states  can 
not  exclude  slavery,  will  Douglas  support  that 
decision,  or  not?"  Lincoln  and  Douglas  each 
stood  in  a  difficult  position,  on  uncertain 
ground,  because  the  minds  of  the  natural  fol- 
lowers of  each  were  obviously  undergoing 
slow  transition;  and  subsequent  events  proved 
that  the  speakers  themselves  were  not  perma- 
nently fixed  in  their  attitudes.  Douglas  seemed 
to  be  trying  to  express  a  compromise  between 
Northern   and    Southern    Democrats;     Lincoln, 


44  -       LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

while  being  clearcut  and  candid  in  his  own  po- 
sition, expressed  the  position  of  the  Republi- 
cans, while,  at  heart  he  seemed  to  feel  with 
the  more  extreme  abolitionists.  Lincoln  said: 
"The  Republican  party  thinks  that  slavery  is 
a  moral,  a  social  and  a  political  wrong."  "I 
have  always  hated  slavery  as  much  as  any 
abolitionist.,,  Then  he  added  that  which  did 
not  please  the  abolitionists:  "I  have  no  purpose 
whatever  to  interfere  with  slavery  where  it 
exists — no  lawful  right  to  do  so."  Yet  we  know 
chat  about  a  quadrennium  later,  as  President,  he 
did  issue  his  Emancipation  Proclamation. 

Lincoln  moved  his  hearers  with  eloquent 
phrases  concerning  the  ''free  and  equal"  clauses 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  and  Doug- 
las replied  that  the  fathers  meant  "free  and 
equal"  white  men  and  had  no  reference  to 
slaves  or  inferior  races. 

"Lincoln  said:  "I  have  no  purpose  to  produce 
political  and  social  equality.  I  am  not  in  favor 
of  making  voters  or  jurors  of  negroes  or  of 
qualifying  them  to  hold  office  or  of  allowing 
them  to  intermarry  with  white  people  .  .  . 
Judge  Douglas  infers  that  because  I  do  not 
want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave,  that  I  must 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS   DEBATE  45 

want  her  for  a  wife.  T  do  not  understand  it 
that  way.  My  understanding  is  that  I  can 
just  let  her  alone  .  .  .  I  have  never  had  the 
least  apprehension  that  I  or  my  friends  would 
marry  negroes,  even  if  there  was  no  law  to 
keep  them  from  it;  but  as  Judge  Douglas  and 
his  friends  seem  to  be  in  great  apprehension 
that  they  might,  if  there  were  no  law  to  keep 
them  from  it,  I  give  him  the  most  solemn 
pledge  that  I  will,  to  the  very  last,  stand  by  the 
law  of  this  state  which  forbids  the  marrying  of 
white  people  with  negroes."  .  .  "I  agree  with 
Judge  Douglas  that  the  negro  is  not  my  equal 
in  many  respects,  but  in  the  right  to  eat  the 
bread  which  his  own  hand  has  produced,  with- 
out the  leave  of  anybody  else,  he  is  my  equal, 
and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equaj 
of  any  living  man." 

Thus  Lincoln  differed  from  the  abolitionist 
crusaders  of  the  East.  He  also  differed  from 
them  in  matters  of  temper  and  attitude  to- 
ward opponents;  in  which  regard  he  differed 
from  most  political  speakers  of  the  day.  We 
find  him  more  temperate,  fair,  courteous  and 
dignified  even  than  Douglas  in  the  debate. 
Douglas    very   adeptly   endeavored     to    belittle 


46  LISCQLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

Lincoln  in  his  narration  of  their  previous  ac- 
quaintance with  one  another.  Lincoln's  con- 
duct of  the  debate  was  more  generous  and  mag- 
nanimous than  that  of  Douglas.  His  denuncia- 
tions were  against  slavery  and  not  against 
slaveholders;  he  said:  "I  have  no  prejudice 
against  the  Southern  people.  They  are  just 
what  we  should  be  if  we  were  in  their  situa- 
tion. If  slavery  did  not  now  exist  among  them, 
they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now 
exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give 
it  up.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  systems  of 
gradual  emancipation  might  be  adopted;  but, 
for  their  tardiness  in  this,  I  shall  not  under- 
take to  judge  our  brethren  of  the  South."  On 
one  occasion  he  said:  "If  all  earthly  power 
were  given  to  me,  I  would  not  know  what  to 
do  with  the  existing  institution.  ...  It 
might  be  best  to  have  all  the  colored  popula- 
tion in  a  state  by  themselves/' 

He  mentioned  possible  deportation  to  Africa, 
but  he  did  not  abuse  men  who  declined  to  adopt 
his  methods.  While  he  was  dealing  with  ques- 
tions, that  were  arousing  antagonisms,  as  bit- 
ter as  men  had  ever  known,  he  never  showed 
bitterness   himself.     He   thought   slowly,    cau- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  47 

tiously,  profoundly  and  with  absolute  fairness. 
His  entire  purpose  was  to  think  out  the  truth 
and  then  to  state  it  so  clearly  that  his  hearers 
could  not  misunderstand.  His  aim  was  not  to 
defeat  an  adversary,  but  to  state  a  truth,  in 
such  a  manner  that  an  adversary  could  not 
overcome  his  truth.  He  did  not  aim  to  say 
tilings  that  were  merely  most  popular  for  that 
day's  debate,  but  to  say  the  thing  that  would 
endure  the  test  of  time  and  prove  to  be  eternal 
justice.  He  loved  the  truth,  used  faultless 
logic,  and  never  resorted  to  fallacy. 

Lincoln  pressed  Douglas  severely  with  ques- 
tions as  to  what  attitude  he  would  take  toward 
certain  issues  that  might  arise  concerning 
slavery  in  the  territories;  and  when  Lincoln's 
followers  advised  him  not  to  press  such  ques- 
tions, he  replied,  "Douglas  can  not  answer 
those  questions  and  be  elected  President  in 
1860."  "The  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a  hundred 
of  this." 

Lincoln  seemed  to  feel  a  duty  beyond  that  of 
success  in  the  present  argument.  He  seemed  to 
feel  the  burden  of  responsibility  for  present- 
ing the  Republican  position  to  be  greater  than 
that  of  personal  success.     To  win  the  Senator- 


43  LINCOX^N-BOUGLAS   DEBATE 

ship  seemed  an  insignificant  part  of  vim  ho 
had  undertaken;  his  momentous  duty  was  to 
stimulate  a  great  uprising.  His  speeches  were 
grave  and  earnest. '  In  that  day  political  gath- 
erings expected  uproarious  entertainment,  but 
he  gave  them  most  profound  problems  for  their 
thinking.  Repeatedly  he  stigmatized  slavery  as 
a  vast  "moral,  social  and  political  evil;"  and 
impressively  denounced  the  position  of  an  op- 
ponent who  "cared  not  whether  slavery  be 
voted  up  or  voted  down."  He  said  "slavery  is  not 
to  be  treated  as  'only  equal  to  the  cranberry  laws 
of  Indiana; '  "  that  slaves  are  not  "on  a  par  with 
onions  and  potatoes;"  that  slavery  might  look 
small  to  Douglas  but  to  the  great  body  of 
American  people  it  was  a  "vast,  moral  evil." 

He  continued:  "Judge  Douglas  contends  that 
whatever  community  wants  slaves  has  a  right 
to  have  them;  and  so  they  have,  if  slavery  is 
right,  but  if  slavery  is  wrong  they  can  have 
no  right  to  do  wrong.  He  says  that  slaves  like 
other  property  may  be  carried  into  new  terri- 
tory, and  that  is  true  if  slavery  is  right,  but  if 
slavery  is  wrong  there  can  be  no  such  right. 
There  can  be  no  comparison  between  right 
and  wrong.     That  is  the  issue  that  shall  con- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  41) 

uuc  in  this  country  when  these  poor  tongues 
of  ours  shall  be  silent.  It  is  the  eternal  Strug 
gle  between  the  two  principles  of  right  and 
wrong  in  the  world.  One  is  the  common  right 
of  humanity  and  the  other  is  the  divine  right 
of  kings.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says:  'you 
work  and  toil  and  earn  bread  and  I  will  eat  it/ 
It  is  a  false  philosophy — it  is  a  false  states- 
manship— that  undertakes  to  build  up  a*  system 
of  policy  upon  the  basis  of  caring  nothing 
about  the  very  thing  that  everybody  cares 
most  about." 

When  Lincoln's  friends  urged  him  to  adopt 
a  more  popular  style,  he  replied,  "I  do  not  seek 
to  amuse  the  people  but  to  convince  them." 
The  depth  of  his  feelings  is  shown  by  a  re- 
mark he  once  made  to  a  friend  during  the  cam- 
paign: "Sometimes  in  the  excitement  of  speak- 
ing I  seem  to  see  the  end  of  slavery.  I  feel  the 
time  is  soon  coming  when  the  sun  shall  shine 
and  the  rain  fall  upon  no  man  who  goes  forth 
to  unrequited  toil.  How  this  will  come,  by 
whom  it  will  come,  when  it  will  come  I  can  not 
tell, — but  that  time  will  surely  come." 

The  immediate  result  of  the  campaign  was 
the   election   of   Douglas  as   Senator,  but   Lin- 


50  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

coin's  questions  obliged  him  to  say  things,  to 
suit  the  Democrats  of  Illinois,  which  caused 
the  Southern  Democrats  to  turn  against  him 
with  bitterness  and  mark  him  indelibly  for 
slaughter.  It  is  a  great  tribute  to  the  personal 
influence  of  Douglas  that  he  could  be  reelected 
with  the  administration  Democrats  against 
him.  The  popular  vote  stood,  Republicans, 
126,084;  Douglas  Democrats,  121,940;  Lecomp- 
ton  Democrats,  5,091;  but  the  apportionment  of 
districts  was  such  that  Douglas  was  reelected. 
But  the  people  of  the  Nation  looking  on  saw 
the  new  man,  Lincoln,  get  approximately  four 
thousand  votes  more  that  the  great  leader  of 
the  Democrats.  Douglas  remarked,  after  the 
debate,  that  during  his  sixteen  years  in  Con- 
gress he  had  not  met  so  strong  an  antagonist. 

Lincoln  had  worked  very  hard.  During  one 
hundred  days  of  the  heat  of  summer  he  had 
traveled  constantly  and  spoken  daily,  making 
speeches  that  cost  the  most  painstaking  effort. 
He  was  worn  out,  and  felt  the  defeat.  He 
knew  that  he  had  gained  in  reputation  and  he 
expressed  the  belief  that  he  had  helped  to  ad- 
vance the  cause  of  freedom  and  justice.  After 
all  he  was  requested  by  the  state  committee  to 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS    DEBATE  51 

contribute  further  to  the  campaign  fund.  His 
reply  shows  his  circumstances  and  his  spirit: 
"I  am  willing  to  pay  according  to  my  ability, 
but  I  am  the  poorest  hand  in  the  world  to  get 
others  to  pay.  I  have  been  on  expense  now  so 
long  without  earning  anything  that  I  am  with- 
out money  for  even  household  expenses.  Still 
you  can  put  down  $250  for  me.  This  with 
what  I  have  already  paid  will  exceed  my  sub- 
scription of  $500.  This  too  is  in  excess  of  my 
ordinary  expenses  during  the  campaign,  which 
being  added  to  my  loss  of  time  bears  heavily 
upon  one  no  better  off  than  I  am.  .  .  You 
are  feeling  badly;  and  this  too  shall  pass  away, 
never  fear." 

Among  the  results  of  the  debate:  Lincoln  was 
invited  to  come  and  speak  in  many  distant 
places  in  other  states.  Douglas  made  some 
speeches  in  the  campaign  in  Ohio  and  Lincoln 
was  invited  to  fellow  him  there,  which  he  did. 
He  was  invited  to  Kansas  and  made  some 
speeches  that  were  well  attended  and  highly 
praised  in  that  Territory.  He  was  invited  to 
speak  in  New  York  City  and  prepared  for  that 
occasion  a  speech  that  called  forth  the  highest 
praise   from   many   Eastern   editors,   including 


52  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

Horace  Greeley,  who  had  been  a  supporter  of 

Douglas. 

From  New  York  he  was  called  to  Massachu- 
setts where  he  made  a  strong  impression  in 
speeches  that  were  said  to  have  contributed  to 
the  success  of  the  Republicans  in  the  subsequent 
campaign.  In  this  Eastern  campaign  he  begged 
the  Republicans  in  the  interest  of  peace  and 
harmony,  to  say  nothing  from  passion  and  ill- 
temper,  but  all  the  while  the  very  issues  which 
he  must  discuss  were  such  as  to  leave  no  hope 
for  harmony  and  not  much  hope  for  peace. 
Slavery  was  the  one  all  absorbing  topic  every- 
where, and  Lincoln's  speeches  contained  the 
entire  position  of  the  Republican  party  ex- 
pressed with  an  effectiveness  not  surpassed, 
possibly  not  equaled,  by  any  other  man  of  that 
day.  His  speeches  were  too  compact  to  admit  of 
being  abbreviated  or  condensed.  His  outstand- 
ing thought  concerned  the  right  or  wrong  of 
slavery.  Slavery  was  either  right  or  wrong. 
If  it  was  right  the  South  had  a  right  to  extend 
and  protect  it;  but  if  it  was  wrong,  the  Repub- 
licans were  right  in  restricting  it  to  where  it 
already  existed  and  preventing  its  extension  to 
new  territories.     That  was  the  position  of  the 


LINCOLN-D<  -I  '  M.AS    I  >EBATE  53 

Republican  party  at  that  time;  and  no  man 
Btated  that  position  more  effectively  than  Lin- 
coln. 

Lincoln  seldom  mentioned,  and  then  with  the 
greatest  care,  the  few  ultra-Abolitionists;  and 
though  his  feelings  toward  slavery  was  much 
like  theirs,  his  words  were  very  different,  and 
he  did  not  wish  to  say  things  that  might  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  ultimate  harmony  of  all  this 
forces  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery. 
Douglas  spoke  often  of  the  ultra-Abolitionists 
and  wished  his  hearers  to  think  of  them  in  con- 
nection with  the  Republicans.  At  that  time  dis- 
union and  secession  were  words  in  common 
use  among  the  masses.  Douglas  never  used 
these  words;  and  Lincoln  mentioned  them  but 
few  times  and  with  the  greatest  caution.  This 
fact  is  fraught  with  meaning,  for  the  Ameri- 
can people  seem  to  understand  that  the  chief 
cause  and  justification  of  the  war  was  the 
Union.  Even  Lincoln,  with  as  great  honesty, 
candor  and  fearlessness  as  was  ever  manifested 
by  any  man  who  succeeded  in  gaining  the  sup- 
port of  enough  of  his  fellow  men  to  be  elected, 
must  be  very  cautious  how  he  spoke  concern- 
ing issues  that  were  paramount  at  the  time. 


54  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

Some  writers  express  contempt  for  the  ultra* 
Abolitionists;  others  give  to  them  all  the  praise, 
with  contempt  for  all  who  were  not  Abolition- 
ists; but  surely  both  these  views  are  too  nar- 
row to  be  just.  Surely,  the  ultra-Abolitionists, 
who  had  no  thought  for  their  own  welfare,  but 
thought  only  of  justice  to  others,  deserve  much 
credit  for  their  part  in  awakening  the  public 
conscience  to  the  evil  of  slavery;  while  a  prac- 
tical leader  like  Lincoln,  though  he  win  the 
rewards  of  election  and  fame,  is  to  be  honored 
for  doing  the  best  that  could  be  done  under  the 
circumstances.  We  need  not  decide  to  whom 
belongs  the  greater  honor,  but  certainly  we 
shall  not  be  just  if  we  give  any  second  place  to 
those  whose  sacrifice  is  greatest,  especially 
when  they  make  that  sacrifice  with  no  hope  of 
reward,  and  with  full  knowledge  of  what  they 
will  suffer,  as  well  as  with  a  clear  vision  of  the 
great  cause  they  serve. 

Lincoln  and  the  other  Republican  leaders  said 
that  if  the  extension  of  slavery  was  prevented, 
then  slavery  was  in  the  course  of  extinction. 
Then  if  slavery  was  right,  the  triumph  of  the 
Republicans  justified  revolution  to  preserve 
slavery;   unless  the  preservation  of  the  Union 


LINCOIiN-DOUGLAS    DEBATE  55 

was  of  greater  importance  than  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  right  to  have  slaves.  That  is  just 
what  many  persons  in  the  North  believed.  They 
felt  that  the  South  had  a  right  to  keep  their 
slaves,  but  had  no  right  to  destroy  the  Union 
to  keep  them,  because  the  Union  was  of  greater 
significance  than  slavery.  Webster  and  others 
had  preached  Union  until  they  had  made  the 
Union  seem  sacred.  The  Union,  once  destroyed, 
would  not  be  restored  in  a  long  time  if  ever, 
but  slavery  tolerated  for  a  time  might  at  any 
time  be  restricted  and  put  in  the  way  of  ex 
tinction. 

Though  Lincoln  talked  slavery  rather  than 
Union  during  all  these  campaigns,  he  later 
showed  that  he  regarded  the  cause  of  the  Union 
to  be  greater  than  the  question  of  slavery,  by 
all  that  he  said  and  did  when  he  became  Presi- 
dent. And  Lincoln  was  indirectly  and  effec- 
tively teaching  the  people  to  save  the  Union  in 
teaching  them  to  regard  slavery  as  wrong;  for 
if  slavery  was  wrong  then  a  revolution  to  per- 
petuate slavery  was  a  double  wrong.  Douglas 
also  declared  his  loyalty  to  Lincoln  and  the 
Union  as  soon  as  the  South  began  to  secede. 
Thoughtful  students  of  history  declare  that  the 


5G  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

election  of  Lincoln  as  President  in  that  crisis 
was  the  most  fortunate  event  in  American  his- 
tory; and  if  that  be  true,  the  Lincoln-Douglas 
debate,  which  made  Lincoln  President  will  not 
lose  its  interest  so  long  as  we  study  the  his- 
tory of  America. 

At  the  Republican  State  convention,  at 
Springfield,  June  16,  1858,  Lincoln  was  chosen 
as  the  Republican  candidate  for  the  United 
States  Senate  against  Senator  Douglas.  Lin- 
coin  made  a  speech  in  which  he  assailed  the 
policies  of  Senator  Douglas.  This  speech  is 
considered  the  beginning  of  the  Lincoln-Doug- 
las debate;  and  the  paragraphs  here  quoted 
were  used  continuously  during  that  contest. 
Lincoln  said: 

"If  we  could  first  know  where  we  are,  and 
whither  we  are  tending,  we  could  better  judge 
what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it.  "We  are  now  far 
into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated 
with  the  avowed  object,  and  confident  promise 
of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under 
the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  not 
only  has  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  aug- 
mented. In  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until 
a   crisis   shall   have   been   reached    and    passed. 


EJNCOLN- DOUGLAS   DEBATE  57 

'A  house  divided  against  itself  can  not  stand.' 
I  believe  that  this  government  can  not  endure 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved;  I  do  not  expect  the 
house  to  fall;  but  I  do  expect  it  to  cease  to  be 
divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all 
the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery 
shall  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place 
it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction; 
or  the  advocates  of  slavery  will  push  it  for- 
ward until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  states,  old  as  well  as  new,  and  North  as 
well  as  South.  Have  we  no  tendency  toward 
the  latter  condition?  Let  anyone  who  doubts 
carefully  contemplate  that  now  we  have  almost 
a  completed  legal  combination-piece  of  ma- 
chinery, so  to  speak,  compounded  of  the  Nebras- 
ka doctrine  and  the  Dred   Scott  decision. 

"Put  this  and  that  together,  and  we  have 
another  nice  little  niche,  which  we  may,  ere 
long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court 
decision,  saying  that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  does  not  permit  a  State  to  ex- 
clude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this  may 
especially  be  expected  if  the  doctrine  of  *car« 


58  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

not  whether  slavery  be  voted  up  or  voted 
down,'  shall  gain  upon  the  public  mind  suffici- 
ent hold  to  give  promise  that  such  a  decision 
can  be  maintained  when  made.  Such  a  decision 
is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being  alike  law- 
ful in  all  the  States. 

''Welcome  or  unwelcome,  such  a  decision  is 
probably  coming,  and  will  be  upon  us,  unless 
the  power  of  the  present  political  dynasty  shall 
be  met  and  overthrown.  We  shall  lie  down 
pleasantly  dreaming  that  the  people  of  Missouri 
are  on  the  verge  of  making  their  state  free, 
and  we  shall  awake  to  the  reality,  instead,  that 
the  Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave 
state.  To  meet  and  overthrow  that  dynasty  is 
the  work  of  all  those  people  who  would  pre- 
vent that  consummation.  That  is  what  we  have 
to  do.    How  can  we  best  do  it? 

"There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to 
their  own  friends,  and  yet  whisper  to  us  softly 
that  Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  instrument 
there  is  with  which  to  affect  that  object.  They 
wish  us  to  infer  all,  from  the  fact  that  he  now 
has  a  little  quarrel  with  the  present  head  of 
that  dynasty;  and  that  he  has  regularly  voted 
with  us  on  a  single  point  on  which  he  and  we 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  ?9 

have  never  differed.  They  remind  us  that  he 
is  very  great  and  that  the  largest  of  us  are 
very  small  ones.  Let  this  be  granted.  'But  a 
living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion/  Judge 
Douglas,  if  not  a  dead  lion,  is  for  this  fight,  a 
caged  and  toothless  one. 

"How  can  Judge  Douglas  oppose  the  advance 
of  slavery?  He  does  not  care  anything  about 
it.  His  avowed  mission  is  to  impress  the  'pub- 
lic heart'  to  care  nothing  about  it.  A  leading 
Douglas  Democratic  newspaper  thinks  that 
Douglas's  superior  talent  will  be  needed  to  re- 
sist the  revival  of  the  African  slave  trade.  Does 
Douglas  believe  that  an  effort  to  revive  that 
trade  is  approaching?  He  has  not  said  so. 
Does  he  really  think  so?  But  if  it  is,  how  can 
he  resist  it?  For  years  he  has  labored  to  prove 
that  it  is  a  sacred  right  of  white  men  to  take 
negro  slaves  into  new  Territories.  Can  he 
show  that  it  is  possibly  less  a  sacred  right  to 
buy  them  where  they  can  be  bought  cheapest? 
And  unquestionably  they  can  be  bought  cheaper 
in  Africa  than  in  Virginia. 

"He  has  done  all  in  his  power  to  reduce  the 
question  of  slavery  to  one  of  mere  property; 
and   as   such,   how    can   he    oppose   the   foreign 


GO  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

slave  trade?  How  can  he  refuse  that  trade  in 
that  'property'  shall  be  'perfectly  free,'  unless 
he  does  it  as  a  protection  to  the  home  produc- 
tion? And  as  the  home  producers  will  prob- 
ably not  ask  the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly 
without  ground  for  opposition  to  the  slave 
trade. 

"Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a 
man  may  rightfully  be  wiser  today  than  he  was 
yesterday — that  he  may  rightfully  change  when 
he  finds  himself  in  the  wrong.  But  can  we,  for 
that  reason,  run  ahead,  and  infer  that  he  will 
make  any  particular  change,  of  which  he  him- 
self has  given  no  intimation?  Can  we  safely  base 
our  action  on  any  such  vague  inference?  Now, 
as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepresent  Judge 
Douglas's  position,  question  his  motives,  or  do 
aught  that  could  be  personally  offensive  to  him. 

"Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  shall  come  to- 
gether on  principle,  so  that  our  cause  may 
have  assistance  from  his  great  ability,  I  hope 
to  have  interposed  no  adventitious  obstacle. 
But,  clearly,  he  is  not  now  with  us, — he  does 
not  pretend  to  be,  he  does  not  promise  ever  to 
be, 

"Our  cause,  then,  must  be  entrusted  to,  and 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  61 

conducted  by,  its  own  undoubted  friends — those 
whose  hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in 
the  work — who  do  care  for  the  result.  Two 
years  ago  the  Republicans  of  the  Nation 
mustered  over  thirteen  hundred  thousand 
strong.  We  did  this  under  the  single  impulse 
of  resistance  to  a  common  danger.  With  every 
external  circumstance  against  us,  of  strango, 
discordant,  and  even  hostile  elements,  we 
gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and 
fought  the  battle  through,  under  the  constant 
hot  fire  of  a  disciplined,  proud  and  pampered 
enemy.  Did  we  brave  all  then  to  falter  now?— 
Now  when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering,  dis- 
severed, and  belligerent?  The  result  is  not 
doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail.  If  we  stand  firm 
we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  acceler- 
ate, or  mistakes  delay  it;  but  sooner  or  later 
the  victory  is  sure  to  come." 
Douglas  said: 

'Trior  to  1854  the  people  of  this  country 
were  divided  into  two  great  political  parties, 
known  as  the  Whig  Party  and  the  Democratic 
Party.  Both  were  national  and  patriotic,  ad- 
vocating principles  that  were  universal  in  their 
application.     An  old -lime  Whig  could  proclaim 


02  LTNCOLN-DOUOL.AS   DEBATE 

his  principles  in  Louisiana  and  in  Massa- 
chusetts alike.  Whig  principles  had  no  bound- 
ary sectional  line — they  were  not  limited  by 
the  Ohio  River,  nor  by  the  Potomac,  nor  by 
the  line  between  free  and  slave  states,  but  ap- 
plied and  were  proclaimed  wherever  the  con- 
stitution ruled  and  the  flag  waved  over  the 
American  soiL,, 

"So  it  was  and  so  it  is  with  the  great 
Democratic  party,  which,  from  the  days  of 
Jefferson  until  this  period,  has  proved  itself 
to  be  the  historic  party  of  this  nation.  "While 
the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  dif- 
fered in  regard  to  banking,  tariff,  specie  cir- 
cular, and  the  subtreasury,  they  agreed  on  the 
great  slavery  question  which  now  agitates  this 
Union.  I  say  that  the  Whig  party  and  the 
Democratic  party  agreed  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion while  they  differed  on  those  questions  of 
expediency  to  which  I  have  referred.  The 
Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  jointly 
adopted  the  compromise  measure  of  1850  as  a 
basis  of  a  proper  and  just  solution  of  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  in  all  its  forms.  Clay  was  the 
great  leader  with  Webster  on  his  right  and 
Cass  on  his  left  and  supported  by  the  patriots 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  63 

in  both  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  who 
had  devised  and  enacted  the  great  compromise 
measures  in  1850." 

"In  1854,  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Ly- 
man Trumbull  entered  into  an  arrangement 
one  with  the  other,  and  each  with  his  respec- 
tive friends,  to  dissolve  the  old  Whig  party  on 
the  one  hand  and  to  dissolve  the  old  Demo- 
cratic party  on  the  other  hand,  and  to  connect 
the  members  of  both  into  an  Abolition  party, 
under  the  name  and  disguise  of  the  Republi- 
can party.  The  terms  of  that  arrangement, 
between  Lincoln  and  Trumbull,  have  been  pub- 
lished by  Lincoln's  special  friend,  Jas.  H. 
Matheny,  Esq.,  and  they  were  that  Lincoln 
should  have  General  Shield's  place  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  which  was  then  about  to 
become  vacant,  and  Mr.  Trumbull  was  to  have 
my  place  at  the  expiration  of  my  term.  Lin- 
coln went  to  work  to  abolitionize  the  old 
Whig  party  all  over  the  state,  pretending  that 
he  was  then  as  good  a  Whig  as  ever;  and  Trum- 
bull went  to  work  in  his  part  of  the  state 
preaching  abolitionism  in  its  milder  forms  and 
trying  to  abolitionize  the  Old  Democratic 
party    and    bind    it    and    bring    old    Democrats 


64  LINC<  )LN-]  >OUGLAS    DEBATE 

bound  hand  and  Toot  into  the  Abolition  camp. 
In  pursuance  of  the  arrangement  the  parties 
met  at  Springfield  in  October,  1854,  and  pro- 
claimed their  new  platform.  Lincoln  was  to 
bring  into  the  Abolition  camp  the  old-time 
Whigs  and  transfer  them  over  to  Giddings, 
Chase,  Fred  Douglas  and  Parson  "Lovcjoy,  who 
were  ready  to  receive  them  and  christen  them 
into  their  new  faith. 

"I  desire  to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln 
stands  today  as  he  did  in  1854,  in  favor  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  I  desire 
him  to  say  whether  he  stands  today,  as  he  did 
in  1854,  against  the  admission  of  any  more 
slave  states  into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people 
want  them.  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands 
pledged  against  the  admission  of  a  state  into 
the  Union  with  such  a  Constitution  as  the 
people  of  that  state  see  fit  to  make.  I  want 
to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  today  to 
tbe  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.  I  desire  him  to  state  whether  he 
still  stands  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the 
slave  trade  between  the  different  states.  I  de- 
sire to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  to 
prohibit   slavery   in  all   the    territories,   North 


LINCOLN-Di  >UGL  IS    I  >EB  ^.TE 

as  well  as  South  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line.  I  desire  him  to  say  whether  he  is  op- 
posed to  the  acquisition  of  any  more  territory 
unless  slavery  is  prohibited  therein.  I  want 
his  answer  to  these  questions.  Your  affirma- 
tive cheers  in  favor  of  this  Abolition  platform 
are  not  satisfactory.  I  ask  Abraham  Lincoln 
to  answer  these  questions  in  order  that  when 
I  trot  him  down  to  lower  Egypt,  I  may  put  the 
same  questions  to  him  there. 

"My  principles  are  the  same  everywhere.  1 
can  proclaim  them  alike  in  the  North  and  the 
South,  in  the  East  and  the  West.  My  prin- 
ciples will  apply  wherever  the  Constitution 
prevails  and  the  American  flag  waves.  I  de- 
sire to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln's  principles 
will  bear  transplanting  from  Ottawa  to  Jones- 
boro.  I  put  these  questions  to  him  today  dis- 
tinctly and  I  desire  an  answer.  I  have  a  right 
to  an  answer,  for  I  quote  from  the  platform  of 
the  Republican  party  as  he  helped  to  frame 
it  at  the  time  that  party  was  formed,  and  the 
bargain  made  by  Lincoln  to  deliver  the  old 
Whig  party  and  transfer  its  members  bound 
hand  and  foot  to  the  Abolition  party  under  the 
direction  of  Giddings  and  Fred   Douglas. 


OG  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS    DEBATE 

"In  the  remarks  which  I  have  made  on  this 
platform,  and  the  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln  upon 
it,  I  mean  nothing  at  all  disrespectful  to  that 
gentleman.  I  have  known  him  for  nearly 
twenty-five  years.  There  were  many  points  of 
sympathy  between  us  when  we  first  got  ac- 
quainted. YvTe  were  both  comparatively  boys, 
and  both  struggling  with  poverty  in  a  strange 
land.  I  was  a  school-teacher  in  the  town  of 
Winchester,  and  he  a  flourishing  grocery- 
deeper  in*  the  town  of  Salem.  He  was  more 
successful  in  his  occupation  than  I  was  in 
mine,  therefore  more  fortunate  in  this  world's 
goods.  Lincoln  is  one  of  those  admirable  men 
who  perform  with  wonderful  skill  whatever 
they  undertake.  I  made  as  good  school-teacher 
as  I  could,  and  when  a  cabinet  maker  I  made 
good  beds  and  desks,  but  my  old  boss  said  that 
I  succeeded  better  with  bureaus  and  secre- 
taries than  with  anything  else;  but  I  believe 
that  Lincoln  was  always  more  successful  in 
business  than  I  was  for  his  business  enabled 
him  to  get  into  the  Legislature. 

"I  met  him  there,  and  had  sympathy  with 
him,  because  of  the  uphill  struggle  that  we 
both  had  in  life.     He  was  then  just  as  good  in 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  67 

telling  anecdotes  us  he  is  now.  He  could  beat 
any  of  the  boys  in  wrestling,  running  a  foot 
race  or  tossing  a  copper;  could  ruin  more 
liquor  than  all  the  boys  of  the  town  together, 
and  the  dignity  and  impartiality  with  which 
he  could  preside  at  a  horse  race  or  fist  fight 
excited  the  praise  and  won  the  admiration  of 
everybody  who  was  present  and  participated. 
I  sympathised  with  him  because  he  was  strug- 
gling with  difficulties,  and  so  was  I.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln served  with  me  in  the  Legislature  in  183 G, 
when  we  both  retired,  and  he  subsided,  or  be- 
came submerged,  and  was  lost  jight  of  as  a 
public  man  for  some  years. 

"In  1846  when  Wilmot  introduced  his  cele- 
brated proviso,  and  the  abolition  tornado  swept 
the  country,  Lincoln  again  turned  up  as  a 
member  of  Congress  from  the  Sangamon  dis- 
trict. I  was  then  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  and  was  glad  to  welcome  my  old  friend 
and  companion.  While  in  Congress,  he  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  his  opposition  to  the 
Mexican  War,  taking  the  side  of  the  common 
enemy  against  his  own  country;  and  when  he 
returned  home  he  found  that  the  indignation 
of  the  people  followed  him  everywhere,  and  he 


was  again  submerged,  obliged  to  retire  into 
private  life,  forgotten  by  his  former  friends. 
He  came  up  again  in  1854  just  in  time  to  make 
an  Abolition  or  Black  Republican  platform,  in 
company  with  Giddings,  Chase,  Lovejoy  and 
Fred  Douglas,  for  the  Republican  party  to 
stand  upon. 

"These  two  men,  Lincoln  and  Trumbull, 
having  formed  this  combination  to  abolition- 
ize  the  old  Whig  party  and  the  old  Demo 
cratic  party,  and  put  themselves  into  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  pursuance 
of  their  bargain  are  now  carrying  out  that  ar- 
rangement. Matheny  states  that  Trumbull 
broke  faith;  that  the  bargain  was  that  Lincoln 
should  be  the  Senator  in  Shield's  place,  and 
Trumbull  cheated  Lincoln,  having  control  of 
four  or  five  abolitionized  Democrats  who  were 
holding  over  in  the  State  Senate;  he  would  not 
let  them  vote  for  Lincoln,  wmich  obliged  the 
rest  of  the  abolitionists  to  vote  for  Trumbull 
in  order  to  have  an  abolition  Senator.  There 
are  a  number  of  authorities  for  the  truth  of 
this  statement  besides  Matheny,  and  I  suppose 
that  Lincoln  himself  will  not  deny  it. 

"When     Washington,      Jefferson,     Franklin, 


LIN(  JOLN-DOUGL.AS    DBBATJ  69 

Hamilton,  Jay  and  the  other  great  men  of  that 
day,  made  this  government,  they  divided  ft 
into  slave  States  and  free  States,  and  left  each 
State  perfectly  free  to  do  as  it  pleased  on  the 
question  of  slavery.  Why  can  it  not  exist  on 
the  same  principles  on  which  our  fathers  made 
it?  They  knew  when  they  framed  the  Consti- 
tution that  in  a  country  as  wide  and  as  broad 
as  this,  with  such  a  variety  of  climate,  produc- 
tion, and  interest,  the  people  necessarily  re- 
quired different  laws  and  regulations;  what 
would  suit  the  granite-hills  of  New  Hampshire 
would  be  unsuited  to  the  rice-plantations  of 
South  Carolina;  and  they  therefore  provided 
that  each  state  should  retain  its  own  Legisla 
ture  and  its  own  sovereignty,  with  full  and 
complete  power  to  do  as  it  pleased  within  its 
own  limits  in  all  things  that  were  local  and 
not  national. 

"One  of  the  reserved  rights  of  the  state 
the  right  to  regulate  the  relations  between  mas- 
ter and  servant  on  the  slavery  question.  At  the 
time  the  Constitution  was  framed  there  were 
thirteen  States  in  the  Union,  twelve  of  which 
were  slaveholding  States  and  one  a  free  State. 
Suppose     that     this     doctrine     of     uniformity, 


70  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  the  states  should 
all  be  free  or  all  be  slave  had  prevailed.  What 
would  have  been  the  result?  Of  course  the 
twelve  slave  holding  states  would  have  over- 
ruled the  one  free  state,  and  slavery  would 
have  been  fastened  by  a  constitutional  provision 
on  every  inch  of  the  American  Republic,  in- 
stead of  it  being  left  as  our  fathers  wisely  left 
it  for  each  state  to  decide  for  itself.  Here  I 
assert  that  uniformity  in  the  local  laws  of  the 
different  states  is  neither  possible  nor  desir- 
able. If  uniformity  had  been  adopted  as  a  prin- 
ciple everywhere,  when  the  government  was  es- 
tablished, it  must  have  either  been  the  uniform- 
ity of  slavery  everywhere  or  the  uniformity  of 
aegro-citizenship  and  negro  equality  every- 
where. 

"We  are  told  by  Lincoln  that  he  is  opposed 
to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  that  he  will 
not  submit  to  it,  because,  as  he  says,  it  de- 
prives the  negro  of  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  citizenship.  This  is  the  first  and  main  rea- 
son which  he  assigns  for  his  warfare  on  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  and  its 
decision.  I  ask  you,  are  you  in  favor  of  con- 
ferring upon  a  negro  the  rights  and  privileges 


LINCOLN- DOUGLAS    DEBATE  71 

of  citizenship?  Do  you  desire  to  strike  out  of 
our  State  Constitution  that  clause  which  keeps 
savages  and  free  negroes  out  of  the  State,  and 
allow  free  negroes  to  flow  over  the  State  and 
establish  black  settlements?  Do  you  desire  to 
turn  this  beautiful  State  into  a  free  negro  col- 
ony, in  order  that  when  Missouri  abolishes 
slavery  she  can  send  a  hundred  thousand  eman- 
cipated slaves  into  this  State  to  become  citi- 
zens and  voters  on  an  equality  with  your- 
selves? 

"If  you  desire  negro  citizenship;  if  you  de 
sire  to  have  them  come  into  the  State  and  set 
tie  with  the  white  man;  if  you  desire  to  have 
them  vote  on  an  equality  with  yourselves,  and 
to  make  them  eligible  to  office,  to  sit  on  juries, 
and  it  d judge  your  rights, — then  support  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  the  Black  Republican  party,  who 
are  in  favor  of  the  citizenship  of  the  negro. 
For  one,  I  am  opposed  to  negro  citizenship  in 
any  and  every  form.  T  believe  that  this  gov- 
ernment was  made  on  the  white  basis.  I  be- 
lieve that  this  government  was  made  by  white 
men  for  the  benefit  of  white  men  and  their 
posterity  forever;  and  I  am  in  favor  of  confin- 
ing citizenship   to  white  men  of  European  de- 


72  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBASE 

scent,  instead  of  conferring  it  upon  negroes,  In- 
dians and  other  inferior  races.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
following  the  lead  and  example  of  all  the  lit- 
tle abolition  orators  who  go  around  and  lec- 
ture in  the  basement  of  schools  and  churches, 
reads  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
that  all  men  are  created  equal  and  then  asks 
how  in  the  face  of  God  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  you  can  deprive  the  negro  of  that 
equality  which  God  and  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence have  awarded  to  him.  He  and  they 
declare  that  negro  equality  is  guaranteed  by 
the  laws  of  God  and  asserted  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  If  they  think  so,  of  course 
they  have  a  right  to  say  so,  and  so  vote.  I  do 
not  question  Mr.  Lincoln's  conscientious  belief 
that  the  negro  was  created  his  equal,  and  hence 
his  brother;  but  for  my  own  part  I  do  not  re- 
gard the  negro  as  my  equal  or  my  brother,  and 
I  deny  that  he  is  any  kin  to  me  whatever.  Lin- 
coln has  evidently  learned  by  heart  Parson 
Lovejoy's  catechism.  He  can  repeat  it  as  well 
as  Farnsworth,  and  is  entitled  to  a  medal  from 
Father  Giddings  and  Fred  Douglas  for  his  aboli- 
tionism. He  holds  that  the  negro  was  born  his 
equal  and  yours,  and  that  he  was  endowed  with 


LINCOLN-  DOUGLAS    DEBATE  73 

■  quality  by  the  Almighty,  and  that  no  human 
law  can  deprive  him  of  these  rights  which  were 
guaranteed  to  him  by  the  Supreme  Ruler  of 
the  universe. 

"Now  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Almighty  ever 
intended  the  negro  to  be  the  equal  of  the  white 
man.  If  He  did  He  has  been  a  long  time  dem- 
onstrating that  fact.  For  thousands  of  years 
the  negro  has  been  a  race  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  during  all  that  time,  wherever  he 
has  wandered  or  been  taken  he  has  been  in- 
ferior to  the  race  which  he  has  there  met.  He 
belongs  to  an  inferior  race  and  must  always  oc- 
cupy an  inferior  position.  I  do  not  hold  that 
because  the  negro  is  our  inferior  that  therefore 
he  ought  to  be  a  slave.  By  no  means  can  such 
a  conclusion  be  drawn  from  what  I  have  said. 
I  hold  that  humanity  and  Christianity  both  re- 
quire that  the  negro  shall  have  and  enjoy  every 
right,  every  privilege  and  immunity  consistent 
with  the  safety  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives. 
On  that  point,  I  presume  there  can  be  no  dr 
versity  of  opinion.  You  and  I  are  bound  to 
id  to  our  inferior  and  dependent  beings 
every  right,  every  privilege,  every  faculty  and 


74  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

every  immunity  consistent  with  the  public 
good. 

"The  question  then  arises,  what  rights  and 
privileges  are  consistent  with  the  public  good? 
This  is  a  question  which  each  State  and  each 
Territory  must  decide  for  itself.  Illinois  has 
decided  it  for  herself.  We  have  provided  that 
the  negro  shall  not  be  a  slave,  and  we  have  also 
provided  that  he  shall  not  be  a  citizen,  but 
we  protect  him  in  his  civil  rights,  his  right  to 
property,  his  right  to  protection,  only  depriving 
him  of  all  political  rights  whatever,  and  refus- 
ing to  put  him  on  an  equality  with  the  white 
man.  That  policy  of  Illinois  is  satisfactory  to 
the  Democratic  party  and  to  me,  and  if  it  were 
satisfactory  to  the  Republican  party  then  there 
would  be  no  question  on  the  subject;  but  the 
Republicans  say  that  he  ought  to  be  made  a 
citizen,  and  when  he  becomes  a  citizen  he  be- 
comes your  equal  with  all  your  rights  and  privi- 
leges. The  Republicans  assert  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  to  be  monstrous  because  it  denies  that 
the  negro  is  or  can  become  a  citizen  under  the 
Constitution. 

"Now  I  hold  that  Illinois  has  a  right  to  abol- 
ish slavery,  as  she  did,  and  I  hold  that  Ken- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  t>E£AT£  U 

tucky  has  the  same  right  to  continue  slavery 
and  protect  it  that  Illinois  has  to  abolish  it.  I 
hold  that  New  York  has  as  much  right  to  abol- 
ish slavery  as  Virginia  has  to  protect  it,  and 
that  each  and  every  state  of  this  Union  is  a 
sovereign  power,  with  the  right  to  do  as  it 
pleases  with  the  question  of  slavery,  and  with 
all  its  domestic  institutions.  Slavery  is  not 
the  only  question  which  comes  up  in  this  con- 
troversy. A  far  more  important  one  to  you 
is,  what  shall  be  done  with  the  free  negro. 
We  have  settled  the  slavery  question  in  Illi- 
nois so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  we  have  pro- 
hibited it  in  Illinois  forever,  and  in  doing  so 
I  think  that  we  have  done  wisely,  and  there 
is  no  man  in  the  state  who  would  be  more 
strenuous  in  his  opposition  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  slavery  into  the  state  than  I  would ; 
but  when  we  settled  it  for  ourselves  we  ex- 
hausted all  our  power  over  that  subject.  We 
have  done  our  whole  duty,  and  can  do  no  more. 
We  must  leave  each  and  every  other  state  to 
decide  the  same  question  for  itself. 

"In  relation  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  to- 
ward the  free  negroes,  we  have  said  that  they 
shall  not  vote;  while  Maine  on  the  other  hand 


76  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

has  said  that  they  shall  vote,  Maine  is  a  sov- 
ereign state  and  has  the  power  to  regulate  the 
qualifications  of  voters  within  her  limits,  I 
would  never  confer  the  qualification  for  citi- 
zenship and  voting  upon  a  negro,  but  I  am  not 
going  to  quarrel  with  Maine  for  differing  from 
me  in  opinion*  Let  Maine  take  care  of  her 
own  negroes,  and  fix  her  own  qualifications  for 
voting,  without  interfering  with  Illinois,  and 
Illinois  will  not  interfere  with  Maine,  So  with 
the  state  of  New  York.  She  allows  the  negro 
to  vote  provided  he  owns  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  worth  of  property  and  not  otherwise. 
While  I  would  not  make  any  distinction  what- 
ever between  a  negro  who  held  property  and 
one  who  did  not,  yet  if  the  sovereign  state  of 
New  York  chooses  to  make  that  distinction  it 
is  her  business  and  not  mine,  and  I  will  not 
quarrel  with  her  for  it.  She  can  do  as  she 
pleases  on  this  question  if  she  minds  her  own 
business,  and  we  shall  do  the  same  thing. 

"Now,  my  friends,  if  we  will  only  act  con- 
scientiously and  rigidly  upon  this  great  prin- 
ciple of  popular  sovereignty,  which  guarantees 
to  each  state  and  territory  the  right  to  do  as 
it  pleases  on  all  things  local  and  domestic,  in- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  77 

stead  of  Congress  interfering,  we  shall  continue 
at  peace  one  with  another.  Why  should  Mis- 
souri be  at  war  with  Illinois,  or  Kentucky  with 
Ohio,  or  Virginia  with  New  York  merely  be- 
cause their  domestic  institutions  differ?  The 
founders  of  the  Republc  knew  that  the  North 
and  the  South,  having  different  climates,  pro- 
ductions and  interests  would  need  different  in- 
stitutions. This  doctrine  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  of 
having  uniformity  among  the  institutions  of 
the  different  states,  is  a  new  doctrine,  never 
dreamed  of  by  Washington  or  Madison  or  any 
of  the  framers  of  the  government.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln and  the  Republican  party  set  themselves 
up  as  wiser  than  the  men  who  framed  this  gov- 
ernment which  has  flourished  for  seventy  years, 
under  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty,  rec- 
ognizing the  right  of  each  state  to  do  as  it 
pleased  with  its  domestic  affairs.  Under  that 
principle  we  have  grown  from  a  nation  of 
about  three  or  four  millions  to  a  nation  of  about 
thirty  millions  of  people;  we  have  crossed  the 
Allegheny  mountains  and  filled  up  the  whole 
Northwest,  turning  the  prairies  into  a  garden, 
and  building  up  churches  and  schools,  thus 
spreading  Christianity  where  before  there  was 


7&  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

nothing  but  a  few  savages  and  barbarians.  Un- 
der that  principle  we  have  become,  from  a 
feeble  nation,  the  most  powerful  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  if  we  only  adhere  to  that 
principle,  we  shall  go  forward,  increasing  in 
territory,  in  power,  in  strength,  and  in  glory, 
until  the  Republic  of  America  shall  be  the 
North  Star  that  shall  guide  the  friends  of  free- 
dom throughout  the  civilized  world.  And  why 
can  we  not  adhere  to  the  great  principle  of 
self  government  upon  which  our  institutions 
were  originally  based?  I  believe  that  this  new 
doctrine  preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party 
will  dissolve  the  Union  if  it  succeeds." 

Lincoln  replied  to  Douglas: 

"When  a  man  hears  himself  somewhat  mis- 
represented, it  provokes  him — at  least  I  find  it 
so  with  myself;  but  when  misrepresentation 
becomes  very  gross  and  palpable,  it  is  more 
apt  to  amuse  him.  The  first  thing  I  see  fit  to 
notice  is  the  fact  that  Judge  Douglas  alleges, 
after  running  through  the  history  of  the  old 
Whig  party  and  the  old  Democratic  party,  that 
Judge  Trumbull  and  myself  made  an  arrange- 
ment in  1854  by  which  I  was  to  have  the  place 
of  General  Shields   in  the  United  States  Sen- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  79 

ate,  and  Judge  Trumbull  was  to  have  the  plage 
of  Judge  Douglas.  Now  all  I  have  to  say  on 
that  subject  is  that  I  think  that  no  man  can 
prove  it — not  even  Judge  Douglas — because  it 
is  not  true.  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  conscien- 
tious' in  saying  it.  As  to  those  resolutions  that 
he  took  such  a  time  to  read,  as  being  the  plat- 
form  of  the  Republican  party  in  1854,  I  will  say 
that  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with  them 
and  I  do  not  think  that  Trumbull  ever  had. 
Judge  Douglas  cannot  show  that  either  of  us 
ever  had  anything  to  do  with  them. 

"Now  about  this  story  that  Judge  Douglas 
tells  about  Trumbull  bargaining  to  sell  out  the 
old  Democratic  party,  and  Lincoln  agreeing 
to  sell  out  the  old  Whig  party,  I  do  know  about 
that,  and  Judge  Douglas  does  not  know  about 
it;  and  I  will  say  that  there  is  no  substance 
to  that  story  whatever.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt 
he  is  conscientious  about  it.  I  know  that 
after  Mr.  Lovejoy  got  into  the  Legislature  that 
winter  he  complained  of  me  that  I  had  told  all 
the  old  Whigs  of  his  district  that  the  old 
Whig  party  was  good  enough  for  them,  and 
some  of  them  voted  that  way  because  I  told 
them   so. 


80  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS    debate 

"Anything  that  argues  me  into  the  Idea  of 
perfect  political  or  social  equality  with  the 
negro  is  but  a  specious  and  fantastic  arrange- 
ment  of  words,  by  which  a  man  can  prove  a 
horse-chestnut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse.  I  will 
say  here,  while  on  this  subject,  that  I  have 
no  purpose  directly  to  interfere  with  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  ex- 
ists. I  believe  that  I  have  no  lawful  right  to 
do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so.  I 
have  no  purpose  to  introduce  political  and  so- 
cial equality  between  the  white  and  black 
races.  There  is  a  physical  difference  between 
the  two,  which,  in  my  judgment,  will  forever 
forbid  their  living  together  in  perfect  equal- 
ity; and  inasmuch  as  it  becomes  a  necessity 
that  there  should  be  a  difference,  I,  as  well 
as  Judge  Douglas,  am  in  favor  of  the  race  to 
which  I  belong  having  the  supremacy. 

"I  have  never  said  anything  to  the  contrary, 
but  I  hold  that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  there 
is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  the  negro  is  not 
entitled  to  all  the  natural  rights  enumerated 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  right 
of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
I   hold   that   he   is  as   much   entitled  to   these 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  81 

as  the  white  man.  I  agree  with  Judge  Doug- 
las that  he  is  not  my  equal  in  many  respects, 
certainly  not  in  color,  and  perhaps  not  in  moral 
and  intellectual  endowment.  But  in  the  right 
to  eat  the  bread  which  his  own  hands  have 
earned,  without  the  leave  of  anybody  else,  he 
is  my  equal,  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and 
the   equal   of   every  living  man. 

"Now  I  pass  on  to  consider  one  or  two  more 
of  these  little  follies.  The  Judge  is  woefully 
at  fault  about  his  early  friend  Lincoln  being 
a  'grocery-keeper'. ..  .He  is  mistaken,  Lincoln 
never  kept  a  grocery  anywhere  in  the  world. 
And  so  my  friend  the  Judge  is  equally  at  fault 
when  he  charges  that  when  I  was  in  Congress 
I  opposed  our  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in 
the  Mexican  War.  The  Judge  did  not  make 
his  charge  very  distinct,  but  I  can  tell  you 
what  you  can  prove  by  the  record.  You  can 
remember  that  I  was  an  old  Whig,  and  when- 
ever the  Democrats  tried  to  get  me  to  vote 
that  the  war  had  been  righteously  begun  by 
the  President,  I  would  not  do  it.  But  when- 
ever they  asked  for  money  to  pay  the  soldiers, 
or  any  land-warrants  for  the  soldiers  during 
all  that  time  I   cast  the  same  vote  that  Judge 


82  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

Douglas  did.  You  can  think  as  you  please  as 
to  whether  that  was  consistent. 

"Such  was  the  truth,  and  the  Judge  has  a 
right  to  make  all  he  can  out  of  it.  But  when 
he,  by  a  general  charge,  tries  to  convey  the  idea 
that  I  voted  to  withhold  support  from  the 
soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  War,  or  did 
anything  else  to  hinder  the  soldiers  in  the 
Mexican  War,  he  is,  to  say  the  least,  grossly 
and  altogether  mistaken,  as  a  consultation  of 
the  records  will  prove  to  him. 

"He  has  read  from  my  speech  in  Springfield 
in  which  I  say  that  'a  house  divided  against 
itself  can  not  stand.'  Does  the  Judge  say  that 
it  can  stand?  I  do  not  understand  whether  he 
does  or  not.  The  Judge  does  not  seem  to  be 
attending  to  me  just  now,  but  I  would  like  to 
know  if  it  is  his  opinion  that  a  house  divided 
against  itself  can  stand.  If  he  thinks  that  a 
house  divided  against  itself  can  stand  then 
it  is  a  question  of  veracity,  not  between  the 
Judge  and  myself,  but  between  the  Judge  and 
an  authority  of  a  somewhat  higher  character. 

"Now,  my  friends,  I  ask  your  attention  to 
this  matter  for  the  purpose  of  saying  some- 
thing seriously.     I  know  that  the  Judge  m^- 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  83 

readily  agree  with  me  that  the  maxim  which 
was  put  forth  by  the  Savior  is  true,  but  he 
may  allege  that  I  misapply  it,  and  the  Judge 
has  a  right  to  argue  that  in  my  application,  I 
do  misapply  it,  and  then  I  have  a  right  to  show 
that  I  do  not  misapply  it. 

"When  he  undertakes  to  say,  that  because  I 
think  that  this  nation,  so  far  as  the  question 
of  slavery  is  concerned,  will  all  become  one 
thing  or  all  the  other,  that  I  am  in  favor  of 
bringing  about  a  dead  uniformity  in  all  the 
institutions  of  the  states,  he  argues  erroneously. 
The  great  variety  of  local  institutions  in  the 
states,  springing  from  differences  in  soil,  dif- 
ferences in  the  face  of  the  country,  and  in  the 
climate,  are  bonds  of  union.  They  do  not 
make  a  'house  divided  against  itself  but  they 
make  a  house  united.  If  they  produee  in  one 
section  of  the  country  what  is  wanted  in  an- 
other section,  and  this  other  section  can  sup- 
ply the  wants  of  the  first,  they  are  not  matters 
of  discord  but  bonds  of  union — true  bonds  of 
union. 

"But  can  the  institution  of  slavery  be  con- 
sidered as  among  these  varieties  in  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  country?     I  leave  it  to   you 


84  LINCOLN- DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

to  say  whether  this  institution  of  slavery  has 
ever  been  a  bond  of  union, — and  if  it  has  not 
always  been  an  apple  of  discord  and  an  element 
of  division  in  the  house.  I  ask  you  to  con- 
sider whether  so  long  as  the  moral  constitution 
of  men's  minds  shall  remain  the  same,  after 
this  generation  and  assemblage  shall  sink  into 
the  grave,  and  another  generation  shall  arise 
with  the  same  intellectual  and  moral  develop- 
ment  as  we  have— whether  if  that  institution 
is  standing  in  the  same  irritating  position  in 
which  it  now  is,  it  will  not  continue  an  element 
of  division? 

"If  so,  then  I  have  a  right  to  say  that  in  re- 
gard to  this  question  the  Union  is  a  house 
divided  against  itself;  and  when  the  Judge 
reminds  me  that  I  have  often  said  to  him  that 
the  institution  of  slavery  has  existed  for 
seventy  years  in  some  states,  and  yet  it  does 
not  exist  in  some  others,  I  agree  to  the  fact, 
and  I  account  for  it  by  looking  at  the  position 
in  which  our  fathers  originally  placed  slavery — 
restricting  it  from  the  new  territories  where 
it  had  not  gone,  and  legislating  to  cut  off  its 
source  by  abrogating  the  slave-trade,  thus  put- 
ting the  seal  of  legislation  against  its  spread. 


I.kXCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE  85 

The  public  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  But 
lately,  I  think — and  in  this  I  charge  nothing 
to  the  Judge's  motives — lately,  I  think  that  he, 
and  those  acting  with  him,  have  placed  this  in- 
stitution on  a  new  basis,  which  looks  to  the 
perpetuity  and  nationalization  of  slavery. 
And  while  it  is  placed  upon  this  new  basis,  I 
say,  and  I  have  said,  that  I  believe  that  we 
shall  not  have  peace  upon  this  question  until 
the  opponents  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it, 
and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  its  ad- 
vocates will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall 
become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states,  old  as 
well  as  new,  and  North  as  well  as  South.  Now 
I  believe  that  if  we  could  arrest  the  spread, 
and  place  it  where  Washington  and  Jefferson 
and  Madison  placed  it,  it  would  be  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction,  and  the  public  mind,  as 
in  the  course  of  eighty  years  past,  would  be- 
lieve that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  ex- 
tinction. The  crisis  would  be  past,  and  the 
institution  would  be  let  alone  for  a  hundred 
years — if    it    should    live    that    long — in    the 


86  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

states  where  it  exists,  yet  it  would  be  going 
out  of  existence  in  the  way  that  is  best  for 
both  the  black  and  white  races.  I  ask  the 
people  here  assembled  and  elsewhere  to  pay 
attention  to  the  course  which  Judge  Douglas 
is  pursuing  every  day,  as  bearing  upon  this 
question  of  making  slavery  national.  Not  going 
back  to  the  records,  but  taking  the  speeches  he 
makes — the  speeches  he  made  yesterday  and  the 
day  before,  and  is  making  constantly  all  over 
the  country.  I  ask  your  attention  to  them. 
In  the  first  place  what  is  necessary  to  make  the 
institution  of  slavery  national?     Not  war. 

"There  is  no  danger  that  the  people  of 
Kentucky  will  shoulder  their  muskets  and  with 
a  young  nigger  stuck  on  each  bayonet  march 
into  Illinois  and  force  them  upon  us.  There 
is  no  danger  of  our  going  over  there  and 
making  war  on  them.  Then  what  is  necessary 
for  the  nationalization  of  slavery?  It  is  simply 
the  next  Dred  Scott  decision. 

"It  is  merely  for  the  Supreme  Court  to  de- 
cide that  no  state  under  the  Constitution  can 
exclude  it;  just  as  they  have  already  decided 
that  under  the  Constitution  neither  Congress 
nor  any  Territorial  Legislature  can  exclude  it. 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  87 

When  that  is  decided  and  acquiesced  in  the 
whole  thing  is  done.  This  being  true,  and  this 
being  the  way  I  think,  that  slavery  is  to  be 
made  national,  let  us  consider  what  Judge 
Douglas  is  doing  every  day  to  that  end.  In 
the  first  place,  let  us  see  what  influence  he  is 
exerting  upon  public  sentiment.  In  this  and 
like  communities,  public  sentiment  is  every- 
thing. With  public  sentiment  nothing  can 
fail,  without  it  nothing  can  succeed.  Con- 
sequently he  who  moulds  public  sentiment  goes 
deeper  than  he  who  enacts  statutes  or  pro- 
nounces decisions.  He  makes  statutes  and  de- 
cisions possible  or  impossible  to  be  executed. 
This  must  be  borne  in  mind  as  also  the  ad- 
ditional fact  that  Judge  Douglas  is  a  man  of 
vast  influence,  so  great  that  it  is  enough  for 
many  men  to  profess  to  believe  anything  when 
they  find  out  that  Judge  Douglas  professes 
to  believe  in  it.  Consider  too  the  attitude 
which  he  occupies  at  the  head  of  a  large  party, 
a  party  which  he  claims  has  a  majority  of  all 
the  voters  in  the  country. 

"This  man  sticks  to  a  decision  which  forbids 
the  people  of  a  Territory  to  exclude  slavery, 
and  he  does  so,  not  because  he  says  it  is  right 


88  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

in  itself, — lie  does  not  give  any  opinion  on 
that — but  because  it  has  been  decided  by  the 
Court,  and  being  decided  by  the  Court,  he  is, 
and  you  are,  bound  to  take  it  in  your  political 
action  as  law — not  that  he  judges  all  of  its 
merits,  but  because  to  him  a  decision  of  the 
Court  is  a   'Thus   saith  the  Lord/ 

"He  places  it  on  that  ground  alone,  and  you 
will  bear  in  mind  that  thus  committing  him- 
self to  this  decision,  not  on  the  merit  of  the 
decision,  but  it  is  a  "Thus  saith  the  Lord," 
will  commit  him  to  the  next  decision.  It  too 
will  be  a  'Thus  saith  the  Lord.'  The  next 
decision  as  much  as  this  will  be  a  'Thus  saith 
the  Lord.'  There  is  nothing  that  can  divert  or 
turn  him  away  from  this  decision.  It  is  nothing 
that  I  point  out  to  him  that  his  great  proto- 
type, General  Jackson,  did  not  believe  in  the 
binding  force  of  decisions.  It  is  nothing  to 
him  that  Jefferson  did  not  so  believe. 

"But  I  can  not  shake  Judge  Douglas's  tooth 
loose  from  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Like  some 
obstinate  animal  (I  mean  no  disrespect)  that 
will  hang  on  when  once  he  has  got  his  teeth 
fixed,  you  may  cut  off  a  leg  but  he  will  not 
relax    his    hold.      He    hangs    on    to    the    Dred 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  89 

Scott  decision.  These  things  show  that  there 
is  a  purpose  as  strong  as  death  and  eternity 
which  causes  him  to  hold  on  to  this  decision, 
and  which  will  cause  him  to  hold  on  to  like 
decisions  from  the  same  Court. 

"Henry  Clay,  my  beau-ideal  of  a  statesman, 
the  man  for  whom  I  fought  all  my  humble  life, 
Henry  Clay  once  said,  the  men  who  would  re- 
press all  tendencies  to  liberty  and  ultimate 
emancipation,  they  must  if  they  would  do  this, 
go  back  to  the  era  of  our  independence,  and 
muzzle  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  annual 
joyous  return;  they** must  blow  out  the  moral 
lights  around  us;  they  must  penetrate  the 
human  soul  and  eradicate  there  the  love  of 
liberty;  and  then  and  not  till  then  can  they 
perpetuate  slavery  in  this  country.  To  my 
thinking,  Judge  Douglas  is  doing  that  very 
thing  by  his  example  and  his  vast  influence 
in  this  country,  when  he  says  that  the  negro 
has  no  part  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
Henry  Clay  plainly  understood  the  contrary.  , 

"Judge  Douglas  is  going  back  to  the  era  of 
our  Revolution  and  to  the  extent  of  his  ability 
muzzling  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  joy- 
ous return.     When  he  invites  any  people,  will- 


90  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE 

ing  to  have  slavery,  to  establish  it,  he  is  blow- 
ing out  the  moral  light  around  us.  When  he 
says  that  he  'cares  not  whether  slavery  be 
voted  up  or  voted  down/  that  it  is  a  sacred 
right  of  self-government,  he  is,  in  my  judg- 
ment, penetrating  the  human  soul  and  eradicat- 
ing the  light  of  reason  and  love  of  liberty  in 
this  American  people.  And  now  I  will  only 
say,  that  when,  by  all  these  means  and  appli- 
ances, Judge  Douglas  shall  succeed  in  bringing 
public  opinion  into  accord  with  his  own  views, 
— when  these  vast  assemblages  shall  echo  back 
all  his  sentiments, — when  gthey  shall  come  to 
repeat  his  views  and  avow  his  principles,  and 
assent  to  all  that  he  says  on  these  mighty 
questions, — then  it  needs  only  the  formality  of 
another  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  he  en- 
dorses in  advance,  to  make  slavery  alike  law- 
ful in  all  the  states,  old  as  well  as  new,  and 
North  as  well  as  South." 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES 


91 


Other  Titles  in  Pocket  Series 


Drama 

295  The  Master  Builder. 
Ibsen. 
90  The  Mikado. 
W.  S.  Gilbert. 
816  Prometheus  Bound. 

Aeschylos. 
808  She  Stoops  to  Conquer. 

Oliver  Goldsmith. 
134  The  Misanthrope. 
Moliere. 
©9  Tartuffe.     Moliere. 
31   Pelleas   and   Melisande. 

Maeterlinck. 
16  Ghosts.    Henrik  rbsen. 
80  Pillars   of  Society. 

Ibsen. 
46  Salome.    Oscar  Wilde. 
64  Importance  of  Being 
Earnest.     0.  Wilde. 
8  Lady  Windermere's 
Fan.     O.  Wilde. 
131   Redemption.    Tolstoi. 
226  The   Anti-Semites. 
Schnitzler. 

Shakespeare's  Plays 

240  The  Tempest. 

241  Merry   Wives  of  Wind- 
sor. 

242  As  You  Like  It. 

243  Twelfth   Night. 

244  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing. 

245  Measure  for  Measure. 

246  Hamlet. 

247  Macbeth. 

248  King  Henry  V. 

251   Midsummer  Night's 
Dream. 


252  Othello,  the  Moor  of 
Venice. 

253  King  Henry  VIII. 

254  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 

255  King  Lear. 

256  Venus  and  Adonis. 

257  King  Henry  IV. 
Part  I. 

258  King  Henry  IV. 
Part  II. 

2(49  Julius  Caesar. 
250  Romeo  and  Juliet. 

259  King  Henry  VI. 
Part  I. 

260  King  Henry  VI. 
Part  II. 

261  King  Henry  VI. 
Part  III. 

262  Comedy  of  Errors. 

263  King  John. 

264  King  Richard  III. 
2  65  King  Richard  II. 

267  Pericles. 

268  Merchant  of  Venice. 

Fiction 

336  Mark  of  the  Beast. 

Kipling. 
B07  A  Tillyloss  Scandal. 

Barrie. 
357  City  of  Dreadful  Night. 

Kipling. 
363   Miggles,  etc. 

Bret  Harte. 
333  Mulvaney  Stories. 

Kipling. 
188  Adventures  of  Baron 

Munchausen. 
352   Short   Stories. 

William  Morris. 
332  The  Man  Who  Was  and 

Other  Stories."  Kipling. 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES 


280  The  Happy  Prince  and 
Other  Tales.     Wilde. 

143  In  the  Time  of  the  Ter- 
ror.    Balzac. 

182  Daisy  Miller. 
Henry  James. 

162  The  Murders  in  the  Rue 
Morgue  and  Other  Tales. 
E.  A.  Poe. 

345   Clarimonde.    Gautier. 

292   Mademoiselle  Fifi. 
De  Maupassant. 

199   The  Tallow  Ball. 
De  Maupassant. 
6  De  Maupassant's 
Stories. 
15  Balzac's  Stories. 

344   Don  Juan  and  Other 
Stories.     Balzac. 

318  Christ  in  Flanders  and 
Other  Stories.     Balzac. 

230  The  Fleece  of  Gold. 

Theophile  Gautier. 
178  One  of  Cleopatra's 

Nights.     Gautier. 
314   Short  Stories.     Daudet. 
58  Boccaccio's   Stories. 
45   Tolstoi's  Short  Stories. 
12   Poe's  Tales  of  Mystery. 
290   The  Gold  Bug. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe. 
145   Great  Ghost  Stories. 
21   Carmen.    Merimee. 
23   Great  Stories  of  the 
Sea. 

319  Comtesse  de  Saint- 
Gerane.    Dumas. 

38  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde.    Stevenson. 
279  Will  o'  the  Mill;  Mark- 

heim.     Stevenson. 
311   A  Lodging  for  the 
Night.      Stevenson. 
27  Last  Days  of  a  Con- 
demned Man.    Hugo, 


151  Man  Who  Would  Be 

King.    Kipling. 
148  Strength  of  the 

Strong.     London. 
41   Christmas  Carol. 

Dickens. 
57  Rip  Van  Winkle. 

Irving. 
100  Red    Laugh.    Andreyev, 
105   Seven   That   Were 

Hanged.      Andreyev. 
102   Sherlock  Holmes 

Tales.     C.  Doyle. 
161   Country  of  the  Blind. 

H.  G.  Wells. 
85   Attack  on  the  Mill. 

Zola. 
156  Andersen's  Fairy  Tales. 
158  Alice  in  Wonderland. 
37   Dream  of  John  Ball. 

William  Morris. 
40   House  and  the  Brain, 

Bulwer  Lytton. 
72   Color  of  Life.     E.  Hal- 

deman- Julius. 
198  Majesty  of  Justice. 

Anatole  France. 
215   The  Miraculous  Re- 
venge.    Shaw. 
24   The  Kiss  and  Other 

Stories.     Chekhov. 
285  Euphorian  in  Texas1. 

Geo.  Moore. 
219   The  Human  Tragedy. 

Anatole  France. 
196  The  Marquise.     George 

Sand. 
239  Twenty- Six  Men  and  a 

Girl.     Gorki. 
29   Dreams.     Oliver 

Schreiner. 
232  The  Three  Strangers, 

Thos.  Hardy. 
277  The  Man  Without  a 

Country.     E.  E.  Hale. 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES 


History,  Biography 

305   Machiavelli.      Ma- 

cuulay. 
340  Life  of  Jesus.     Ernest 

Kenan. 
183  Life  of  Jack  London. 

269  Contemporary  Por- 
traits.    Vol.  1.     Frank 
Harris. 

270  Contemporary  Por- 
traits.    Vol.  2.     Frank 
Harris. 

271  Contemporary  Por- 
traits.    Vol.  3.     Frank 
Harris. 

272  Contemporary  Por- 
traits.    Vol.  4.     Frank 
Harris. 

328  Joseph  Addison  and 

His  Times.     Finger. 
312   Life  and  Works  of 

Laurence  Sterne. 

Gunn. 
324  Life  of  Lincoln. 

Bowers. 
323  The  Life  of  Joan  of 

Arc. 
339   Thoreau — the  Man 

Who  Escaped  From 

the  Herd.      Finger. 
126   History    of    Rome.      A. 

F.  Giles. 
128  Julius  Caesar;  Who  He 

Was. 
185   History  of  Printing. 
14  9   Historic    Crimes    and 

Criminals.      Finger. 
175   Science  of  History. 

Froude. 
104  Battle  of  Waterloo. 

Victor  Hugo. 
52   Voltaire.     Victor  Hugo. 
125   War   Speeches  of 

Woodrow  Wilson* 


2  2    Tolstoy;    His    Life   and 
Works. 
142   Bismarck   and  the 
German  Empire. 

286  When  the  Puritans 
Were  in  Power. 

343  Life  of  Columbus. 
60  Crimes  of  the  Borgias. 
Dumas. 

287  Whistler;  The  Man 
and  His  Work. 

51  Bruno;  His  Life  and 

Martyrdom. 
147  Cromwell  and  His 

Times. 
236   State  and  Heart  Af- 
fairs  of   Henry  VIH. 
50   Paine 's  Common 

Sense. 
88  Vindication  of  Paine. 

Ingersoll. 
33  Brann;  Smasher  of 

Shams. 
163   Sex  Life  in  Greece 

and  Rome. 
214   Speeches  of  Lincoln. 
276   Speeches  and  Letters 

of  Geo.   Washington. 
144  Was  Poe  Immoral? 

Whitman. 
223  Essay  on  Swinburne. 
2  27  Keats.     The  Man  and 

His  Work. 
150  Lost  Civilizations. 

Finger. 
170  Constantine  and  the 

Beginnings    of    Christi- 
anity. 
201   Satan  and  the  Saints. 
67  Church  History.    H.  M. 

Tichenor. 
169  Voices   From  the   Past. 
266  Life  of  Shakespeare 

and  Analysis  of  His 

Plays, 


9t 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES 


123  Life  of  Madame  D\i 

Barry. 
139  Life  of  Dante. 
69  Life  of  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots.     Dumas. 
6  Life  of  Samuel  John- 
son.    Macaulay. 
174  Trial  of  William  Perm. 

Humor 

291  Jumping*    Frog"    and 

Other  Humorous  Tales. 

Mark  Twain. 
18  Idle  Thoughts  of  an 

Idle  Fellow.     Jerome. 
166  English   as  She  Is 

Spoke.     Mark  Twain. 
231  Eight  Humorous 

Sketches.   Mark  Twain. 
205  Artemus  Ward.     His 

Book. 
187  Whistler's  Humor. 
216  Wit  of  Heinrich 

Heine.     Geo.  Eliot. 
20  Let's  Laugh.     Nasby, 

Literature 

349   Apology  for  Idlers, 

etc.      R.  L.   Stevenson. 

858  Virginibus   Puerisque. 
R.   L.    Stevenson. 

109  Dante,    and    Other 
Waning  Classics,  Vol. 

1.  Mordell. 

110  Dante,  and  Other 
Waning  Classics.     Vol. 

2.  Mordell. 

355  Aucassin  and  Nico- 
lete.     Lang. 

278  Friendship    and   Other 
Essays.     Thoreau. 

195  Thoughts  on  Nature. 
Thoreau. 

220  England  in  Shake- 
speare's Time.     Finger, 


IU4   Lord  Chesterfield's 

Letters. 
63  A  Defense  of  Poetry. 

Shelley. 
97  Love  Letters   of  King 

Henry  VIII. 
3  Eighteen  Essays. 

Voltaire. 
28  Toleration.     Voltaire. 
89  Love   Letters  of  Men 

and  Women  of  Genius. 
186  How  I  Wrote   "The 

Raven."     Poe. 
87  Love,   an  Essay.     Mon- 
taigne. 
48  Bacon's  Essays. 

60  Emerson's  Essays. 
84  Love  Letters  of  a 

Portuguese  Nun. 
26  On  Going  to  Church. 
G.  B.  Shaw. 
135  Socialism  for  Mil- 
lionaires.    G.  B.  Shaw. 

61  Tolstoi's  Essays. 

176  Four  Essays.      Have- 
lock  Ellis. 

160   Lecture  on  Shake- 
speare.     IngersolL 

75  Choice  of  Books. 
Carlyle. 

288  Essays  on  Chesterfield 
and  Rabelais.  Sainte- 
Beuve. 

76  The   Prince  of  Peace. 
W.  J.  Bryan 

86  On  Reading.     Brandes. 
95   Confessions  of  An 

Opium  Eater. 
213  Lecture  on  Lincoln. 

Ingersoll. 

177  Subjection  of  Women. 
J.  S.  Mill. 

17  On  Walking.     Thoreau. 
70   Chas  Lamb's  Essays. 
235  Essays.     Gilbert  K. 
Chesterton. 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES 


95 


7  A   Liberal   Education. 
Thos.  Huxley. 

233  Thoughts   on  Litera- 
ture and  Art.     Goethe. 

225  Condescension    in   For- 
eigners.    Lowell. 

221  Women,    and  Other 
Essays.      Maeterlinck. 
10  Shelley.     Francis 
Thompson. 

289   Pepys'  Diary. 

299  Prose   Nature  Notes. 
Whitman. 

315   Pen,    Pencil   and 
Poison.     Wilde. 

313  The  Decay  of  Lying. 
Oscar  Wilde. 
36  Soul   of  Man  Under 
Socialism.     Wilde. 

293  Francois  Villon;   Stu- 
dent,  Poet   and  House- 
breaker.    Stevenson. 

Maxims  and  Epigrams 

77  What  Great  Men  Have 
Said  About  Women. 

304   What    Great   Women 
Have   Said  About  Men. 

179   Gems  From  Emerson. 

310  The  V/isdom  of 
Thackeray. 

103   Wit   and   Wisdom  of 
Charles  Lamb. 
56  Wisdom    of  Ingersoll. 

106  Aphorisms.      George 
Sand. 

168  Epigrams.    Oscar  Wilde. 
59  Epigrams  of  Wit  and 

Wisdom. 
35   Maxims.     Rochefou- 
cauld. 

154  Epigrams  of  Ibsen. 

197  Witticisms  and  Re- 
flections.    De    Sevigne. 


180  Epigrams  of  Geo. 
Bernard  Shaw. 

155  Maxims.     Napoleon. 

181  Epigrams.     Thoreau. 
228  Aphorisms.     Huxley. 

113  Proverbs  of  England. 
348  Proverbs  of   Scotland. 

114  Proverbs  of  France. 

115  Proverbs  of  Japan. 

116  Proverbs  of  China. 

117  Proverbs  of  Italy. 

118  Proverbs  of  Russia. 

119  Proverbs  of  Ireland. 

120  Proverbs  of  Spain. 

121  Proverbs  of  Arabia. 
380  Proverbs  of  Yugo- 
slavia. 

Philosophy,   Religion 

338  Guide  to  Emerson. 
218  Essence  of  the  Tal- 
mud. 
11   Guide  to  Nietzsche. 
Hamblen. 
159  A  Guide  to  Plato. 

Durant. 
322  The   Buddhist   Philos- 
ophy of  Life. 
347  A  Guide  to  Stoicism. 

St.  George  Stock. 
124  Theory  of  Reincarna- 
tion Explained. 
157  Plato's  Republic. 
62   Schopenhauer's 

Essays. 
94  Trial  and  Death  of 

Socrates. 
65  Meditations    of    Marcus 

Aurelius. 
64  Rudolph   Eucken;    His 
Life  and  Philosophy. 
4  Age  of  Reason. 
Thomas   Paine. 
55  Herbert   Spencer;   Hi3 
Life  and  Works. 


90 


TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES 


44  Aesop's  Fa  Dies. 
165   Discovery  of  the  Fu- 
,  turc.     H.  G.  Wells. 
96  Dialogues  of  Plato. 
3  25  Essence  of  Buddhism. 
103   Pceket  Theology. 
Voltaire. 

132   Foundations  of  Re- 
ligion. 

138   Studies  in  Pessimism. 
Schopenhauer. 

211  Idea  of  God  in  Nature. 
John  Stuart  Mill. 

212  Life  and  Character. 
Goethe. 

200  Ignorant  Philosopher. 

Voltaire. 
101   Thoughts    of   Pascal. 
210   The  Stoic  Philosophy. 

Prof.   G.   Murray. 
224   God;   Known  and  Un- 
known.    Butler. 
19  Nr.tzsche;   Who  He 

W.is  and  What  He 

Stood  For. 
204   Sin  Worship  and 

L?*er  Beliefs.  Tiehenor. 
207  Olympian   Gods.      H. 

M.  Tiehenor. 
184   Primitive  Beliefs. 
153   Chinese    Philosophy 

of  Life. 
80  What  Life  Means  to 

Me.      London. 


Poetry 


301   Sailor  Chanties  and 

C  wboy  Songs. 
346  Old  English  Ballads. 
296   Lyric  Love.     Browning. 
351  M- -nories  of  Lincoln. 

Whitman. 


.  _.   Today  r,   Poetry. 

Anthology. 
335  Odes  of  Horace. 

Vol.  I. 
366  Odes  of  Horace. 

Vol.  II. 
152   The  Kasidah. 

Sir  Richard  F.  Burton. 

283  Courtship  of  Miles 
Standish.    Longfellow. 

282   The  Rime  of  the  Ancient 

Mariner.    Coleridge. 
317   L 'Allegro  and  Other 

Poems.    Milton. 
297   Poems.  Robert  South ey, 
3  29  Dante's  Inferno. 

Vol.   1. 
330   Dante's  Inferno. 

Vol.  IL 
306  A  Shropshire  Lad. 

Housman. 

284  Poems  of  Robert  Burns, 

1  Rubaiyat  of  Omar 
Khayyam. 

73   Walt  Whitman's  poems. 

2  Wilde's  Ballad  of  Read- 
ing  Jail. 

3  2   Poe's  Poems. 
164  Michael  Angelo'a 
Sonnets. 
71   Poems  of  Evolution. 
146   Snow-Bound,  Pied 
Piper. 
9   Great  English  Poems. 
79    £%och  Arden. 

Tennyson. 
68   Shakespeare's   Sonnets'. 
281  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome* 

Macaulay. 
173  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal. 

Lowell. 
222  The  Vampire  and  Other 

Poems.     Kipling. 
237   Prose  Poems. 
Baudelaire. 


- 

•>. 

1 

H 

sc 

I 

"£5 

o 
o 

O 

6 

o 

>-        UJ 

<u 

CC          CC 

E 
o 

<         CD 

X 

DC          s- 

^ 

1 
o 

E   LII 

-OF  — 

HA 

O 

O 
CO 

5    '   * 

c 
(J 

>          UJ 

Lis 

Di           O 

c 

O 

0_                      (£ 

O 

^ 

U 

UJ 

^N 

O 

O. 

r\ 

-* 

CO 

z 

:':  "":  •    ':■■"-■■■■  •■■•■:vy.^r:-'~'".~-' 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 

973.7L63C4B67A  C001 

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  GIRARD 


3  0112  031804807 


